Re: Very Naughty Kitten

My four-month old kitten, Shadow, is a nightmare. He is naughtier than any child or animal I’ve ever had to deal with and I’m not sure what to do with him. For starters, he jumps on everything, knocks things over constantly, and gets into anything he possibly can. He thinks everything small is a toy and it all eventually ends up under my bed where I can hear him fiddling around with all of his “treasure” all night long. He also loves to jump up on my desk and play with the computer keyboard, take tissue paper out of the box, rip it up and strew it all over my apartment, etc. Besides this, he just yelps constantly … non-stop … all the time … even when he’s taking a dump or pissing he’s yelping. I already got him fixed, but that hasn’t calmed him down. Is there Ritalin or something for cats? I’m really about to lose my mind! My other cat was never this naughty when she was little, and is a perfect angel now. The kitten, though, is a NIGHTMARE (and btw, I’ve tried every imaginable type of punishment and it doesn’t work … and rewarding for good behavior doesn’t work because he’s never good … I swear, he is the anti-Christ of kittens!) :fume:

Well, he sounds entertaining at least :stuck_out_tongue:

That just sounds like a normal kitten. Mine has ripped the tissue to shreds too, and chewed the clothes in the laundry basket, and keeps disconnecting the Internet while I’m on the puter, climbs the mosquito netting in front of the windows, ran across my face (stopped that now, at least) while I was sleeping about a million times, etc. etc.
I have two, and the “normal” cat is a banshee. However, the half-Persian is much more mellow. She started climbing almost a full month later than the other one, has never puffed up in aggressive cat-attack mode when playing with toys, and never uses her nails when playing with me (unlike the other one). If I remember correctly your other cat looked as if it was Persian, or at least had some Persian blood.
Just wait. Mine are almost five months now and they are already starting to calm down. I was so hoping for this, and now that it has happened I miss my little hellcat!
By the way, could your new one have some Siamese blood, thus the talking? Have you ever taken a photo of him with a flash camera? What color does his eyes show, green or red?

And can you see its reflection in a mirror?! :smiling_imp:

Sounds like a perfectly normal kitten.

I have one as well. On professional advice (914 & stray dog) we tried the old water spray-bottle trick to instill discipline, but this has now become yet one more game to play - how to avoid the water bottle. It’s all fun and games until you get amushed shaving witha straight razor.

LB-TW, try this: http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=SRC&S=2&SourceID=18

I saw you mentioned ‘all kinds of discipline’; I hope that doesn’t include smacking the kitten, as, beside amounting to animal abuse, it will only make the cat worse. I’m hoping your ‘discipline’ is nothing more than squirts of water or verbal warnings.

Check out the thread - there’s tons of great info. If the kitty is really getting too much for you, I’ll take it off your hands.

Cheers,

Sean

Sounds like a real delight! :slight_smile: I’m serious.

If you don’t like this, I don’t think you’ll like kittens, or puppies, or children, and perhaps you shouldn’t have one. :s

Oriental breeds, such as the Siamese, are known to be very vocal. If your cat has a pointed face and a long, lean body, chances are she has some oriental heritage, so “talking” may be a part of her character. Avoid giving her any attention when she is vocal because this will only encourage the vocal behavior. Instead, give her attention when she is quiet.

Also, just wait a month or two. Cats and kittens are completely different breeds almost. I think your other cat with its Persian personality spoilt you!

I can’t hit my cats … the only discipline I use is locking him up in his cage for a while, the water bottle squirting thing, and screaming at him … he knows when he’s naughty, so as soon as I shout his name, he darts under the bed … where minutes later I hear him fiddling around with the “treasure” he’s collected that day … :unamused:

He also likes to occasionally play with his own shit, so I have to follow him around after he’s done doing his business in the litter box and wipe up little kitten shit footprints … not fun. It was worse when I woke up on morning to find the little shit footprints all over my bed. :fume:

This should be a cartoon strip. :laughing:

I find pooing my kitten works well. I’ve had her for almost a month now and when she does something close to me, I simply go “poo”. She dislikes the blow in the face and she immediately stops what she’s doing and runs away. She’s gotten to the point that I can say poo without being close enough for my breath to affect her. Sometimes. It’s kind of frustrating that my Siamese-esque 4-year-old cat knows that when I wiggle my fingers, palm down, it means to come so I can pet him. If Mariposa, the kitten, is anywhere around, she takes it to mean “attack the wiggling monster with your claws”. Fortunately all the scars I have incurred during these last four weeks are going away and she’s no longer using my toes as a means to pull herself up into my bed with her claws at 2am. :astonished:

Isalu, my older cat, managed to destroy my roommate’s Hawaiian lei and strew the flowers all over our apartment when he was an older kitten. I hope Mariposa doesn’t go through that second kittenhood stage. The first one is hell enough. I miss when she was happy to only climb up my shoulder and sit there. Or when she was small enough to.

Good lord, don’t lock him in the cage thing. That won’t do anything. It sounds like you’re scolding him for normal kitten behaviour. Kitten-proof your house…try to put away anything that you don’t want the kitten to play with. And leave out many things he can play with.
My kittens love little bits of rolled up paper…they’re obsessive! Particularly the receipts from stores, because they love the noise the paper makes. Seriously, my cats were insane too in the beginning.

I also had to get up a few times in the beginning to wash poop off of my floors and kitten, particularly the Persian one. She would lose her balance and fall back into her own poop, and I would have to wash her at 2 a.m. in the morning! Just like a real baby! And she would scream and scratch me, too! But she’s just so cute I could never be angry at her.
You have to realize that if a kitten throws stuff off a table, tears up your tissue, or whatever, she/he is really not being naughty. That is what a kitten does. Don’t leave things on counters, don’t leave closet doors open, don’t hang towels where kitten can pull them off, etc.
You’re dealing with a baby here.
But I can understand your frustration. There were times when I woke up to the sound of destruction and wanted to freak out too because of lack of sleep.
How old is he/she now? How much time do you spend at night playing with him? I found that it helped if I tired them out completely before bed…

Good luck and I hope it works out.

Jeez, and my friends kept telling me that Tuesday is an obnoxious, spoiled brat :astonished: She’s an angel compared to what you guys describe here.

I just spent about 30 minutes fishing out about ten bottle caps and about a package worth of torn up tissues from under the bed that Shadow has been hoarding under there … not to mention toys that I had forgotten I had even bought them, pieces of roaches, my Buddha prayer beads that I thought I had lost, amongst other things.

The other one, Kitty, doesn’t do anything but sleep, lick herself, eat, and shed. What a life … sigh

I also forgot to mention that Shadow has the worst table manners. He makes the most obnoxious slurping noises when he’s eating, and only about 2/3 of the food ends up in his mouth, the rest gets strewn all over the kitchen. Since I’m a clean freak, it’s a constant battle with him (and with Kitty’s incessant shedding).

Yeah, don’t you wish you could just spend your days licking yourself? :wink:

Where on Earth did she get stuff like bottle caps, tissues (again?) and prayer beads? Sigh. Shadow, I give up. It looks like it’s going to be too hard to train this human child.

That said, my double bed is raised a bit off the ground…just enough for about a million of those toy mice, little balls of paper, and dry food pellets to disappear under. Once a week I get down on my knees with a wire hanger that has been bent open and scrape it all out. This is their favorite activity…it’s like rediscovering old treasures all over again!

Once Cinnamon was tearing around the house while I was getting ready for work. I was standing in the bathroom wearing only a skirt, when she stormed in and jumped straight up, taking hold of the skirt around my ass. I was still thinking she wouldn’t possibly…when she took the next jump, just missing as she tried to reach my shoulders. I can still hear the sound of tearing flesh as she slid down towards the floor.
Kittens.
Don’t you just love them? :heart:

Yeah, don’t you wish you could just spend your days licking yourself? :wink:[/quote]

Believe me, I’ve tried, but I’m just not as flexible as I used to be … :blush:

LBTW, we once had a tomcat that was not quite as hyperactive as you describe, but he had a couple of things in common: he kept throwing things over and seemingly didn’t care and he also didn’t seem to learn from his accidents. What we had taken as exaggerated coolness on his part actually turned out to be impaired hearing: he was deaf. Once we found out, a number of other behavioural patterns made much more sense … one of which was a pronounced “vocality” if that’s a word, complaining all the time, and in a very loud voice (he couldn’t hear himself “speak” …) I don’t really think your little kitten fom hell suffers from the same condition, but maybe worth checking out. Does she react to sounds that are not connected to any activity/movements within her field of vision?

Man, little Bhudda, enjoy it while you can. Before you know it, you’ll be looking like a total prick – throwing little tinfoil balls, wiggling sticks with feathers on the end, etc. – while the cat lies on its side licking its paws and staring at you as if you’re mad.
Trust me on this!

“Play with your OWN damn toys – can’t you see I’m busy?”

Little B, how is shadow now?

Cats are explorers. Take him for a walk, on a leash. Perhaps he gets frustrated being inside 4 walls all day. Being outside awakens their natural instincts.

See the following link for his mother and father (Maya and Black):

community.webshots.com/user/asianetics