Average Jane’s Feline Nemesis

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I’ve had my male cat since early 1990, when he was a tiny kitten that could stand in the palm of my hand. He’s been a part of my life since long before I met my husband, and we’ve lived in six different places together.

He’s had some health issues over the years and thus he gets prescription food to keep him from being too skinny. This is not new: he’s been eating the prescription diet for at least five years. I feed him in our bathroom so the other cats don’t push him aside to get the expensive food.

The new part of the situation is that he has suddenly begun demanding food at all hours of the day and night. There’s nothing stopping him from going to the basement to eat his fill of the cat food that’s available for all of the cats, but he’s not interested in that anymore. No, he’d rather follow us around the house meowing loudly and irritatingly.

That would be bad enough, but now he’s decided that his breakfast will come earlier if he comes into our bedroom and walks all over me until I wake up. He knows I’m the early riser, so every day he jumps up and bugs me like it’s his full-time job. I elbow him off the bed over and over, but eventually he always wakes me up. My policy is not to feed him right away when I get up, but I think he’s well aware that the sooner I get up, the sooner he’ll get fed.

I love letting the cats cuddle with us at night, but I’m afraid it’s time to institute a "no cats in the bedroom" rule. That is, unless I can figure out a way to un-spoil the troublemaker. Any ideas?

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7 responses to “Average Jane’s Feline Nemesis”

June 3, 2005

Huts

My wife is woken up at 4 am every morning with a cats face 2 inches from hers. If that doesn’t get her up to feed her, the cat will walk all over her until she does. She won’t bother me though!

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June 3, 2005

Frances

Maybe he has something wrong with him. A stomach tumor or something that is making the behavior change.

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June 3, 2005

bitterkat

Somewhere along the line we trained the cats to leave us alone in bed (I just can’t remember how!). However, if a human foot exits the covers and touches the floor our black cat Gumby suddenly appears and begins an incessant stream of meowing. If the foot goes back into the bed the meowing ceases. It’s pretty fun to tool around with him.

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June 3, 2005

Jane

Huts – The cat doesn’t bother my husband either. He’s definitely figured out who’s most likely to get up.
Frances – I certainly hope not! He seems robustly healthy in general, except for the annoying neediness.
Bitterkat – That sounds like one of our female cats. She waits on the floor until someone moves from semi-consciousness to full awakeness, then leaps up and begins meowing.

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June 4, 2005

tina

Polyphagia ( mucho eating)= sign of diabetes in both humans and animals.
The cat/human has no insulin to carry nutrients across the cell, hence, the cell is starved. Hence, the cat/ human eats more…
Along with polyphagia comes polydipsia… mucho drinking of water.
Take said cat to the vet… for testing .. pronto.

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June 4, 2005

Dave Kelly

Your cat sounds just like my 17 year old male cat.
And I don’t have an answer for you except you are not alone in your dilemma.

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June 19, 2005

mary

We had a cat who lived to be 20 years old. She was a needy kitty to begin with, but such a sweet character that we couldn’t say no to any demands.
So in later years, she took advantage of us…there were demands for attention and food(she had food available 24/7).and later she used to meow loudly in the middle of the night as if we had abandonned her.
We were told it was part of the aging process..
So been there, done that, and no, you are not alone. It’s tough!

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