Night visits..

[Fire Fox]

I wonder if you both work, and she is sleeping all day then taking advantage of the situation when you are home? I found the Bergan Turbo Track plus flashing ball invaluable for keeping my last boy occupied overnight. You can purchase this in the Purrs shop (clicky at tope of the page) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIgdVucDeVU You might also try clicker training (see You Tube for tutorials) which will occupy her mind and can be used to stop or encourage many behaviours. Last thought is a feeder ball containing dry food which you put down at night. Both a clicker and a ball are cheap as chips. 

[LazyDaisy]

I too have a Daisy and she too has some rather fustrating but adorable night time habits. She always falls asleep on my shoulder and then wakes up to move onto my chest. I have sometimes woken up thinking I'm having a heart attack because of the crushing pain on my chest 
Then she moves to the pillow and after giving my hair and ear a thoroughly good wash she goes back to sleep.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Fitzchiv]

Welcome to the boards!

I'm currently reading the Farseer books as we speak how cool is your username

I have three indoor cats who alternate between being aloof at night and then wanting to share my bed, my only useful advice is to play with Daisy and wear her out in the evenings - It doesn't always work with mine but it can help

Haha, it's not often people know where my handle comes from - it's been my online persona for over a decade now!

We're trying that very technique with her, to tire her out in the evening. Thankfully for some reason if I run away from her she likes to chase and tackle my legs, so a few laps round the building of that plus plenty of normal play leaves her out for the count by the time we go to bed

[Zenith (Liz)]

Welcome to the boards!

I'm currently reading the Farseer books as we speak how cool is your username

I have three indoor cats who alternate between being aloof at night and then wanting to share my bed, my only useful advice is to play with Daisy and wear her out in the evenings - It doesn't always work with mine but it can help

[Liz]

No cattery but lots of ferals and cats with issues who have been abused or severely neglected but live happily together after a lot of hard work on our part, they also only share theor home with my husband and I and are on the most part secure with us and all visit the vet twice a year for their injections etc

We do have some normal cats and my pedigree rescue ragdoll who has lots of issues but is now a happy soul, I take the ines noone wants and give them a home for life under our care, I follow isolation and intense training methods and all are happy and healthy and abive all given the time and space to be all they can be

[Fitzchiv]

To answer a few questions, I think she's generally done it since we allowed her access to our bedroom at night.

We started out with her being housed in the front room (it's very large as it's a combined dining room also, has her litter, cat tree, toys, water, window ledge for looking down on the wall etc in it) over night.

We then allowed her wider access to all other rooms bar our bedroom and the kitchen - and that was when she started scratching at the bedroom door to gain access. My response for a few weeks was to put her back in the front room, rather than allow her into the bedroom, as she would generally prat about and knock things over and cause trouble.

Eventually we allowed her full access after she'd started sleeping on our bed a bit through the day - and since that point the night visits have occurred. So I think her motivation has always been there, just that i've restricted the opportunity to act on it.

We got her at 4 months old (we believed her to be 5 months old until a closer inspection of her injection cards recently) - and she had had two previous homes at that point, and the lady who passed her on to us to look after (temporarily whilst a permanent home was found) believed she had been taken from her mother too early. Which would make sense.

Anyway, we ended up falling on love with her and keeping her, and it's just a case now of making sure we do right by her!

[maddercow]

FIFTY TWO CATS??!!!
How on earth.....  do you run a cattery or something?

[Liz]

We have our noctunal ones and they play downstairs but they do tend to wind up the dogs so we have some barking We have our permanant bed huggers all 14 of them and we have the ones who prowl and want to play and wake up the sleeping ones after a long time you get so tired you sleep through anything

We have 52 cats, 2 dogs and a puppy!!!

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

Mine are being really annoying at the moment and being active at about 4.45 am, wandering around, whining a bit and then at 6am when my alarm goes off and I have to finally get up (having been awake for over an hour) they both settle down on the bed and give me that "are you getting up then? I'm just getting comfy" look 

[Michelle (furbabystar)]

Don't you just love them 
Its perfectly normal and as others have said she is just a baby.
Most of mine, when young, have done this.
I think the way to deal with this is to totally ignore her, don't even tell her to go away or put her on the floor because to her any attention is better than done.

[Rosella moggy]

We have a few cats   

All is usually OK till about 3.30am when Fred starts his squeaking and has to be fed (he has kidney probs so must be fed whenever he will eat);

5am is Millie's time to tunnel under duvet and sharpen her claws on my leg;

around 5.30am Groucho thinks Millie is playing bed mice so jumps on her and the two of them disappear downstairs;

5.45am brings Noni demanding brekkie (and therefore also her chirupping shadow Billy Whiz) and the two of them dribble so have to draw duvet over head.....

6am OH gets up to feed them all (3 in front bedroom, Groucho in the back one and 2 downstairs).  When Groucho has finished OH brings Fred back up to bedroom so he can have another bite to eat away from the rest of them .....

Ruby and Dinah are usually no trouble at all 

I am constantly 

Cats are creatures of the night and we are not.  Think that's the main problem....

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

Yup - just wanting attention.  You can forget about sleeping through the night from now on!

Seriously though - if you want to discourage this behaviour at night, you need to ignore it.  If you respond in any way (either by stroking or talking to her, by getting up to open the door, by putting her on the floor etc.) you will only encourage her.  The only way to stop her is to completely ignore her so that she gets no reward for it.  She might then decide to give up.  I have a similar problem with Mosi but beyond the initial settling down, he tends to not bother me too much during the night now.  He does sometimes run around, whine and push the door wide open but I try to totally ignore him and eventually he does calm down and shut up!  It can be hard to ignore them when you've got a whisker up your nose though!  Last night we were all woken by foxes outside and so Jaffa got up and came and sat on my pillow by my head.  He was sat on my hair, purred very loudly in my ear and tickled my face with his whiskers.  I just wanted to go back to sleep!

[maddercow]

Aww but its so cute isn't it?

My boycat Cashie only wants cuddles at night and comes up from the bottom of the bed several times for strokes and sticks his feet up my nose.  He's not cuddly most of the time so I don't discourage him, although often fall asleep with my hand on his head. I have kind of got used to it, I just relax & fall asleep pretty easily with a purry cat next to me.

Izzy does the toe biting and that's a nasty little habit. She sits at the bottom of the bed waiting for me to move my feet then dives in with her claws the little minx.

Maybe if you give her lots of attention the first time she may be satisfied with that and not keep coming back??...... Hmm.... I doubt it too.

Have you had her since she was a kitten?  Has she always done this or is it a relatively recent development?

 

[Dawn F]

one of mine religously visits at 5.30 everyone morning - another sleeps between the pillows but luckily doesn't move around - our previous cat was a toe biter so did get shut downstairs!

[Tiggy's Mum]

Sounds like typical pesky cat behaviour to me  I don't mind my two cats sleeping on the bed but it does my head in when I get poked, purred and even dribbled on 

My cat has improved pester-wise, I used the 'supernanny' method on him. Literally picked him up and put him at the end of the bed over and over again without engaging with him but he's still a bit annoying  You could persevere with what you're doing or if you are strong enough then put her in the kitchen overnight with her bed, tray and toys. I could bnever bring myself to do that as I'd feel too bad!

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

 

[Fitzchiv]

Well I think we've no issues as long as there's nothing we're neglecting which is bringing this on, if it's just a case of wanting effection and snuggles then that's fine.

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

She is just being a cat and wants attention and showering with love.

The mouse is a present and she just wants tons of time with you, she is still a kitten,

She wants to snuggle up in bed and feel loved and probably goes back to her missing her mother.

These are the things all of us suffer adore about our cats and I have a 6,5 monster Misa and a little 17yr old birman sharing my bed and wanting cuddles and up to a couple of weeks ago had the other birman too on the bed and he would lie on my pillow and gaze into my eyes.

He was a real cuddler and had to be touching and I miss him so much.

[Fitzchiv]

Hi guys, quick question about our 9-month old house cat.

Long and short of it is she very, very persistently wants to visit us through the night at various intervals to purr and lick and generally be effectionate. If If the bedroom door is shut, she will scratch and scuff persistently until I open it.

If we pop her on the floor, she'll immediately come back up and start again, and this can go on for five, six, seven repetitions until she's delivered her effection!

Whilst it's lovely, it's also a little dispruptive, and on a night when we're both particularly tired I may put her on a "living room lock down" where she spends the final couple of hours of a night in the front room! My main worry really though, aside from tiredness, is if we're neglecting anything that makes this behaviour more pronounced? She's never as effectionate through the day, or on an afternoon when we get back from work. But for some reason once the lights are out, it begins!

Not sure whether it makes any difference or not but the focus of this behaviour is my girlfriend, not me, and almost daily she finds a toy mouse in her handbag!

So, any ideas as to why this behaviour exists and anything we could be doing to help her if she's displaying distress in a very positive (but assertive) way?

Cheers