I've combined a few of your posts, and I'm going to respond to each as they come.
Hi there...my Garfield is driving me INSANE!:yellbounce He of course is a ginger tabby..as a kitten he was very cuddly, attention demanding..& of course i caved to his cuddles etc. As an adult, his attention demanding has gotten out of control. I can pet him constantly, & its still never enough, to the point he tries to climb up me..claws & all.Drooling, pushing his way around..its just never enough attention. No matter what i try to do to curb his ways, he still insists on pushing his way for attention, climbing on my guests, always under feet.
It sounds to me like he's bored.
My boys go through phases where they need more exercise and mind-games, or they're terrors. When they're like that we have a few solutions that work great:
-Automatic laser pointer (
Frolicat - Bolt on Amazon) is a lifesaver.
When I was sick a few weeks ago I could turn the thing on and it would keep the boys occupied without any more effort than pushing a button. Love it.
-'Da Bird (
on Amazon) is also amazing. Hard to find in Canada, but worth their weight in gold. Nothing gets all 4 of my cats going like this thing. My 2 girls aren't all that interested in the laser, but they love this toy.
Use some sort of toy to play with him for at LEAST 20 minutes, ideally twice a day. You need to get him panting, or it won't work. If you play for a bit, until you're bored, and he's still excited and ready to go you're actually making it WORSE, not better. You need to play with him until HE'S tired.
He also sounds like a prime candidate for clicker training! Food motivated, likes attention, athletic, clever, ect. Look up '
clicker training cats' on youtube (hey, look...it's a link
) and work with him. Smart cats get bored easily, and if you teach him to 'come' first (HIGHLY recommended, btw) you can call him away from most naughty behaviors, and then he's being good and you can praise him! Perfect.
He also constantly HOWLS! For no reason in particular. Really bad at feeding time, but throughout the day, bellows, howls, meows..i guess seeking more attention.., i used to tell him no..to realize by communicating, was attention to the behavior..have tried for months to ignore it..but it makes my hair stand on end, & aggravates me to no end, as it is constant!.
When i do get up (5am) he EXPECTS me to feed him right away by "death meowing" at me before & during serving his food. He stops once food in front of him, but still meows while eating.
Once finished he meows again, yet he gets enough food to last him all day. He'll pig out on his food till he pukes,doesnt want to share with our other cat (i have been feeding them seperately for couple months now, as my other cat got sick/dehydrated cause he wasnt getting his share)
He's doing this because you're giving in. Actually, you've made it worse. Sorry.
The reason it's gotten so bad is because of a varied rate of reinforcement. Think of a person playing slot machines. You pull the handle and....EXCITEMENT...you lose. Darn. Try again. You pull the handle and....EXCITEMENT...you lose. Darn. Try again. You pull the handle and....EXCITEMENT...you lose. Darn. Try again. You pull the handle and....EXCITEMENT...you WIN!!!! OMG OMG OMG! It doesn't matter how much you win, it's the endorphins and the anticipation that's really the reward. The next time you play you'll pull the darn lever twice as long, even if you don't win at all, because you know it's POSSIBLE for you to win. That's how gambling becomes addictive, and it's the same cause for your boy's excitement.
Something called an 'extinction burst' happens, and that's when people are most likely to give up when training. It goes like this:
Cat meows, you ignore him. Repeat for 10-15 minutes. Then the cats starts getting louder, and louder, and meowing more often. This bit, when the cat is most annoying, is the extinction burst. He's giving it everything he's got - one last big PUSH. If you give in and yell at him he WINS. And the next time you try ignoring it he'll try TWICE AS HARD. See how ignoring him isn't working? Eventually you give in and he's rewarded for trying his very hardest. If you had instead ignored him at this point he would have given up and you'd be over the worst bit. He's still meow, but it wouldn't be as bad.
It works double for morning feedings because he's not only rewarded by attention, there's FOOD involved.
If you start doing clicker training with him (that magical 'come') you can call him to you, rather than hollering at him, and then you can reward him for coming rather than having him be an annoying PITA for an hour.
It's always better to replace a bad behavior with a good one.
Next MAJOR issue, is he is a constant counter surfer! I have tried setting mouse traps to spook him..he walks around them, & the snap doesnt spook him anymore. Have tried pepper, tin foil, water all on counter..no luck.Theres never any food or crumbs for him. He also always gets up on china units, knocking things down. He has high places to go that he IS allowed..but insists on other areas instead. The counter thing..we have gone as far as getting the underground pet fence ( the collar that shocks him) & now that doesnt even faze him.
Garfield constantly counter surfs, pries cupboard doors open,climbs on all furniture,shelves etc..knocking things down as he is not dainty on his feet. This cat does NOT always land on his feet,he's quite clumsy.
For the counter surfing..have done/tried it ALL! Water doesnt scare him, tinfoil he plays with, double sided tape he gets stuck to his feet but doesnt care. Ive tried setting mouse traps, but he sets them off & ignores them..spiky bottomed plastic carpet didnt work, tobasco sauce just stained my counters, pepper he didnt flinch.
We ended up buying an electric fence "shock collar" running the wire around the counters. He figured out how to jump over it & not get zapped.
We have since resorted to tying him on a 20 foot leash, so he cant get in the kitchen...This punishment is not working either.
There's more than one issue here, so one at a time:
Counter surfing happens because he finds it, in some way, rewarding. Most likely because he gets attention for it. When a cat has been reinforced the way yours has (probably for years) they stop caring whether their getting positive attention or negative. Attention is attention and he wants it.
Teaching him to come means you can reward him for coming, and he can't both come AND be on the counter. Mutually exclusive behaviors are a wonderful thing.
All of the things you tried are negative. ALL OF THEM.
I think it's time for a different strategy, because clearly what you're doing isn't working. Aside from the fact that things like tabasco sauce and shock collars are terrible ideas and border on cruelty. (Shock collars are against the law in many European countries...for a reason.)
Instead of all this fuss teach him to come.
Please throw out the shock collar. On cats they can cause HUGE issues like redirected aggression, and they generally don't work at all. Every time you use it you're taking a risk.
Tried spraying him with water ( before the collar thing) but he's not scared of water. He looks at me as if to say "go for it, i dare you". He's very defiant personality.
I wanted to respond to this directly. Can't aren't 'naturally defiant'. He's doing these things because at some point they were rewarded, likely by you inadvertently encouraging it. That's how that works.
Cats don't do things to 'get back at you', to 'challenge your authority' *eyeroll*, or because they're 'defiant'. They simply don't have the brain power for it. Period.
At one point or another he liked what happened when he was on the counter, and all the things you tried to dissuade him either weren't enough to change that (Please don't take this as a dare...) or were somehow rewarding for him (most likely, given your descriptions).
Basically, it's the kitty version of Fear Factor. 'Can you withstand tabasco on your paws to lick the steak juice?' 'Can you put up with a shock on your neck to get attention?' Not effective. (It's amazing what some people will do/eat *shudders* for a million dollars, animals aren't that different if you have the right motivators.)
Also he (both cats) are on homemade food, as garfield was susceptable to UTI's
He has been vet checked, & has NO health issues to cause his annoying habits...
I'm glad you took him to a vet to make sure he's healthy. That's a great step.
As far as his diet, can you walk me through what, exactly, you feed him? 'Home made' can be a number of different things, and diet can play a big role in behavior.
as he explodes fur)
HELP8-O
...I'm not sure what you mean by 'explodes fur? Presumably that he sheds a lot? If that's the case brushing can help, and diet plays a pretty big factor as well.
He does get attention & play times..but in his mind, its never enough
Does anyone else have anything similar to my problems with him? If so what have you done to curb or prevent them..thanks
One of my boys sounds a lot like your Garfield. Muffin is a love sponge, and when he wants attention he's done everything from chasing the other cats, to being on the counter, to sitting literally ON my face...if it gets him attention he WILL DO IT.
That's why we love the laser pointer. Also, in the summer he gets to go outside into our catio, which he loves, and I take him to the local kiddy park once a week or so (on a leash - which I trained him to accept from a very young age).
I also do training with my cats, and when one of them is being particularly feisty I break out the treats and we have a training session. Working their little bodies is only half the battle. You need to work their brains too!
Are you for real? You have him tied to a leash? Please let this not be real, and if it is, please find a home for your cat. And trying to shock him? I just don't even know what to say, really.
Tethering a cat isn't necessarily cruel or awful. It isn't something I typically suggest, but I have done it.
In our case the option was Doran spraying urine all over our home and the leash was used as a tool to help him re-integrate into our home, while under direct supervision.
If you leash your cat you MUST (not optional):
-Train them to accept a harness FIRST. You CANNOT safely attach a leash to a cat's collar. I can't stress how important this is.
-Must be directly supervising them at all times. You can't leave the room at ALL. Cat's can't understand how a leash works and will tangle themselves up, guaranteed. You have to be there to untangle them. (Doran got much better with this after a solid month of being tethered 1-2 hours a day...but it takes a LOT of time and he would have hung himself from his harness - why you can't do it with a collar! - more than once if I hadn't been RIGHT there.)
-Have them of the leash most of the time - even if it is confined to one room. They shouldn't be harnessed and tethered more than 1-2 hours.
Finally, I'd suggest if he's howling at night anyways that you confine him to one room for the night. Feed him his dinner in his room, supply a litter box, cat post, toys, and water and lock him in each night.
My boys love their room and spend quite a lot of time in there even when the door is open. At night they're currently locked in (Doran's UTI is causing spraying set backs
) and as he adjusts it may calm down his yowling...or at least put you far enough away that you can ignore it until you CHOOSE to get up.
There will be an adjustment period, but after a week or two it shouldn't bug him at all.
*cough*....sorry for the novel.
