Luckily it has been a long time since I've had any real issues with Beanie. We've had him a little over a year now and we had him sort of figured out although why he feels the need to run at full speed up the garden I will never know.
The last couple of days we have been out all day but still home by his dinner time. This at the most happens a couple of times a month if that and he is used to having someone around for the majority of the day. Due to my fiancé's health issues, he's had more than one person at home for a while now and Steve is a bit soft with him so he gets away with a lot more than he used to when it was just me at home. We have seen in the past that on days where we have been out all day he can be a little more difficult than usual the following day. we put it down to he was just bored and attention seeking now we were back.
Tonight was so much worse than any other time. We left the house early this morning to get over to a war memorial park for armed forces day and didn't get back till nearly 7pm. Whenever we have to go out for the day, we make sure his litter trays are clean, he has plenty of food and has a few of his ping pong balls and some toys to destroy so he has something to do. We've recently switched to a cat fountain so he has plenty of fresh water as well. We also top up the dry food in his treat tower (catit one looks a bit like an upside down beehive) which almost always has some dry food available and in doing this he has gotten so much better with his dry food, only eating a little when he feels like it rather than emptying a bowl in about 5 minutes. He always has wet food for his meals before someone complains that he shouldn't only eat dry food.
Despite all of this, when we got in he was quite happy rubbing his head over anything he could find like he normally does coming over for head bumps and instead of a nice greeting he bit me. not hard enough to draw blood but still not the point. I say ow and make it clear im not happy with him biting but he rarely pays attention to that. Then as I was walking back into the house from sitting in the garden he runs at full speed behind me goes under my legs meaning I had to break my fall against the door frame. For this he was told no and as I just wanted to spend some time sitting down after a long day, I left him in the house and he started whining against the window. Eventually I had enough of the whining and relented and let him out and he settled down long enough for us to have dinner. Steve went in the house for something and asked him why he was whining in a normal tone and straight away Beanie hissed at him which he never does unless it involves a flea treatment. After dinner I wanted to go and sort out some bits in my car and left him in the garden. In the year we've had him he's never left the garden unless we're there and as the driveway is at the back anyway I would see if he got out. As I was sat in the car I watched him squeeze under the gap of the gate and start to run off. He's a Maine coon mix and not a small cat so I don't even know how he got under it. Steve opened the other car door and confused him long enough for me to open the gate and order him back in the house. He went back in luckily. To top it off when we came in to give him his dinner, we have a routine which we started to stop him being so impatient with his food (issue from before we got him due to being underfed and competition for meals) and also so he doesn't run into the cupboard we keep his food in. He does this normally with me but pushes his luck with Steve and this evening he seemed to not want to listen to either of us.
Honestly I am totally baffled. We've had issues of separation anxiety before which we dealt with but making sure he had plenty around to do and a plug in relaxation thing which helped and we're used to him attention seeking after we've been out for a while but this was almost like he was having a toddler temper tantrum because we had the audacity to go out. The problem is we can't be here 24/7 for the remainder of his life just because he acts like this when we go out, we don't go out a lot but I would rather not have to deal with this problem every single time.
If anyone has a clue why he's acting this way, other than being a brat because we weren't home I would love to know your thoughts and what others who have separation anxiety cats have tried to help. Worst case we can go to a behaviourist and I would rather fix this issue than just deal with the fallout because I can't stay in the house all day everyday just to entertain him.
