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What's the best way to deter our cat from scratching at our bedroom door?
With my husband's allergies and our soon-to-be-arriving baby that we will be
cosleeping with, we made the decision a few weeks ago to keep the cats out of the bedroom. We are extremely happy with the decision and we are both breathing better at night (we are both slightly allergic to them). My husband doesn't have to take extra allergy medicine anymore and his asthma has improved. We did a thorough cleanup this past weekend and it is amazing how much cat hair gets around our routine cleanings. Unfortunately, our oldest cat Luna is not pleased with the decision at all. He is a half-Maine Coon neutered male who just turned 4. He is definitely the dominant cat, and I am "his". He is a very intelligent cat and discipline has always been difficult with him. When he gets squirted with a water bottle, he knows that we are doing it (as opposed to our younger half-Siamese Mina who has an almost comical "where the heck did that come from" reaction). He knows the meaning of the word "No" and the tone/gesture for "Out", but being a typical cat, he will usually stall and sulk. He basically has an "I don't care attitude" when we try and discipline him. Early on, he had an obsession with clawing and meowing at the front door to get out. As a kitten, we used to let him out for short, monitored excursions since we've never lived anywhere where I've felt safe letting him wander at will (we're now in the country but we live 100 feet from a heavily traveled road and since we've lived here I've been unable to avoid hitting 2 cats and have dodged dozens more). After a while, though, he used those excursions to try and run and hide in order to stay outside and they only made the clawing and meowing worse, so we discontinued them, except for every couple months or so. He rarely meows or scratches at an outside door (it also helps we have an indoor porch between him and the outside now), but we still have to be on guard for him rushing past us. Well anyways, he has started a campaign of clawing and meowing at our bedroom door once or multiple times during the night. We tried ignoring it, but it made no difference to him, and after several days of interrupted sleep, we found a yelled "NO" would usually suffice. That didn't last long. We tried the squirt bottle, but within a few days of that, when he hears us getting up to squirt him, he'll be all the way down the hall or hiding in the bathroom (I know discipline doesn't count unless you catch them in the act, so what if they know they're doing something wrong and run away from the discipline - I'm really confused about this). We keep the bathroom door closed now, which eliminated a place to hide, but that only worked a few days. What we've been doing now, is that when he scratches the first time, my husband will squirt him into the living room (if he isn't already there) and close the door between the living room and hallway (he'll claw and meow at that door too but we can only barely hear him thank goodness). The only problem is that doing that isolates them from their litter box (and we don't want the mess/hassle of setting up a second one in there), so we can't do that too long. It also hasn't made any difference with his scratching if the door comes open or my husband forgets to close it when he leaves for work in the morning. It drives me crazy that HE KNOWS that its driving us crazy. LOL I wasn't always sure if it was the case, but I'm pretty sure that Luna is aiming for any attention he can get from us, negative or not. When I open the door and he's already down the hall, he's already won for all purposes of the interaction. He's even started trying to run/sneak past us into the bedroom or into the hallway door when we open them to discipline him, like he thinks we won't do anything to him once he gets in there (yeah right). His persistence is driving me crazy, but there is no way that I am reversing my decision. I'm at my wits end and sleeping right now is hard enough without the meowing and scratching (I'm awake at the first scratch). Any suggestions? We've pondered duct tape, which we've used with decent success in the closet where their litter box is due to the very loud scratching/pounding he would do after using the litter box. I think a Scat Mat would be perfect for this purpose, but we honestly can't afford one right now (I've even checked eBay). I've never used Feliway, but I've heard it discussed here. Would that have a chance of working? Am I right in that Luna isn't being picky over positive or negative attention? In that case, is there anything differently behaviorally we could do? I'm very tired, very frustrated, but committed to keeping the family together. - Joanne |
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