annoying cat syndrome

[Voice for Peace]

I love this kitty to pieces, he's the best cat ever except
for his most annoying persistent and loud whiny meow.

So annoying in fact that one of the other cats up and
clobbered him, just to get him to shut up.

Anyone have a good suggestion for teaching an
otherwise perfect cat to "use his words" ??

The only thing that works is if I grab him and pet
him and kiss and hug him for a long time.. but I'm
starting to feel used...

he was so cute when I adopted him, looked like this one:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. He has learned that howling like a banshee

is what motivates you to pet him. So he has trained you to do what he wants you to do by his annoying meowing. Is it possible to ignore him? (Dumb question. I have The Loudest Cat In The World, and when he goes off he's pretty hard to ignore. But I think he howls just because he like the noise.) Because if you don't reinforce his behavior by picking him up and petting him, maybe he'll stop. Eventually. In the meantime, buy earplugs? Or maybe you could reward him with attention or food only when he uses his "indoor voice" (which is probably never).

Good luck.

[Voice for Peace]

2. it's just that he wanders around meowling, like he has an itch he can't scratch, so pitiful

and I have the sense he is a ptsd kitty, having been
found as a tiny kitty lost in the big city.. he seems
to be having flashbacks all the time. My armchair cat
psychology..

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Could be. When I first got my Loudest Cat In The World,

he wandered around the house yowling constantly and very loudly. I think he was freaked out over being in a new place - he was a 10 month old shelter cat, and I'm not sure what his earlier situation was like. Eventually he settled down, and now he hollers mostly when he wants food or for the other cats to go away. Or because he likes to. You might check with your vet about getting a tranquilizer, or you could get Feliway, which often helps nervous cats relax.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. I had a very clingy, whiny cat

that I had found living in the street who was about 6 months old. He had a broken tail, and who knows what his life had been like prior to this. He hated kids, so I have a feeling that his first 6 months were not good. Whenever I would sit down, he would come up on my lap and hide his head in my armpit and suck on my shirt....so I assumed that he had been removed from his mother too early.

The good news is that he did grow out of it, after a long long time. I don't know how long you have had this cat, but my Ginger did turn into a very mellow and sweet cat after he finally felt loved and secure. This cat turned out to be my most devoted cat. But it was quite a challenge for a very long time. All I did was let him love on me as much as I could, and he did get extra time from me because it was needed.

[Voice for Peace]

9. he's about four and I've had him since about 3 months

maybe if I keep up with the love he will outgrow this but it's
taking forever.. he too is a big nursing lapbaby, he would
spend hours at that if he could.

[Curmudgeoness]

10. I don't think anything broke my heart as much

as having what appeared to be a full-grown cat nursing on my shirt sleeve. What terrible things had happened to him in his early life! All I was able to do was love him and give him a forever home that was always safe. He lived to the ripe age of 17, so I suppose that I made up for the bad times he had.

If your cat still nurses, it seems to me that he still needs to be comforted. It doesn't seem to me that Ginger did it for almost 4 years, but I can't remember for sure. I just remember that he did get over it, and he got over the other issues he had, like whining and crying all the time....at some point, because he was a very good cat, and got mellow.

Just think about how you have to give some cats more love than others, because they need it.

[Voice for Peace]

11. thank you!

that's my inclination but people tell me I'm much too easily manipulated by cats.. I say so what

[ginnyinWI]

5. Is your cat older?

My older,(now deceased)cat would yowl and it turned out she had gone rather deaf, and was howling just to hear something. She would stop when we picked her up and held her, giving her something else to think about.

[Voice for Peace]

7. he's only about 4 at the most.. I think it's ptsd

but I may go deaf

[ScreamingMeemie]

6. One of my cats has a penchant for "singing" in the foyer because it's

nice and echo-y in there. She typically waits until I am watching television or trying to sleep. I've never been able to break her of it so now I just try to concentrate on the good stuff she does, like ripping off the weatherstripping on the back door...

[Voice for Peace]

8. aha..

I can't imagine he likes the sound of his own voice though..
and I haven't tried getting him working on the weatherstripping,
but we do need to replace it, so there's an idea...

[ginnyinWI]

12. mine did that too

Always where there was the most echo, like at the bottom of the stairs.

[KC]

13. My cat

Last edited Tue Feb 12, 2013, 06:48 PM - Edit history (1)

does that too although it has finally become more when he wants to eat. If he feels ignored he will do it some.
It's true if you respond to like feeding when they do it , they do have you trained.
I've found with mine when he starts if I just pat the arm of my chair and say in a kind of different voice, say his name and say come here or what is it anything just to get HIS attention. Don't pick him up make him come to you. Them once he jumps up just pet him. For me this breaks the meowing and makes him do what you want instead of the other way around,

[Warpy]

14. I have a cat in renal failure

and she's been losing weight slowly but steadily. The vet ordered mirtazapine every 2-3 days to try to increase her appetite. The warning was that she'd get a little hyper and talkative for the first 6 hours.

Oh, my word. She sleeps for the first 6 hours and then is hyper and screeches for the next two days. It does pick up her appetite tremendously, doubling her food intake the first day, but losing my sleep is a really heavy price for me to have to pay.

I should count myself lucky that she doesn't get weird and vicious on it as some cats have. I suppose I'll be sacrificing sleep for a while.

I didn't even think this cat had a voice until she meowed a little, scratchy "mew" after she'd been living with me for three months. She has certainly found her voice and developed a nasty vocabulary to go along with it.