Some furry owners complain that their beloved pet has a habit of waking everyone up early in the morning. All this to beg for food or get a dose of affection. As a result, every day in the morning you can hear stomping, creaking doors, and the scratching of claws on door frames in the house. There are also other signs of activity. Early in the morning the animal begins to beg for food, meow almost in the ear, and climb on the bed. The owner has to get up to feed his animal. But this is wrong - the cat should wait until everyone wakes up, pays attention to it and feeds it. How to wean a cat from this behavior?
Is it possible and how to train a cat not to disturb sleep?
There is no simple and clear way to solve the problem of early rises. The training procedure is complex and lengthy. But if you are pretty tired of cat songs in the morning, then you should try.
Action plan for teaching an animal to silence:
- First, you should mentally prepare yourself and your family for the long journey. After all, the procedure can take at least a month.
- Prepare a spray bottle of water next to the bed.
- When in the morning a cat tries to attract attention to itself and starts jumping on the bed and meowing, you need to lightly spray its curious face with water. Temporary effect is guaranteed.
- It is advisable to close the doors to all rooms except yours. Or provide all apartment residents with sprayers.
- Under no circumstances should you show signs of attention to the animal. Even if it pretends to be suffering terribly and howls heart-rendingly somewhere next to the bowl. Scratching behind the ear, stroking, talking should be done at any other time, but not during the morning “hysterics”. It is only acceptable to splash water when trying to “scream” over the ear.
- Develop and establish a clear meal schedule, taking into account weekends. Food should only be provided at specific times.
- Strictly monitor the implementation of all points of this plan. And do this until the cat stops waking you up in the early morning.
- If at least once one of the family members gives up, the training will have to start from the very beginning. Please note that doing this again will be much more difficult.
Over time, the cat will remember that she will definitely be given enough attention and fed her favorite food, but not under the pressure of her heart-rending cries, but when the time comes.
Feeling safe is the main criterion for sound sleep
For a cat, the home is divided into 3 zones: “food consumption zone”, “protected area”, “safe zone”. The last zone should be inaccessible to other animals and small children. The cat should feel completely protected in its sleeping place.
Until the moment the sky turns grey, the night remains quiet, but with dawn birds and insects wake up, reaching for the warmth of the sun. Birds hunt insects, and this is a whole bustle, inaudible for you and very noisy for your pet. If the natural course of nature is joined by bad weather, wind, noisy people going to work early in the morning, a period of wakefulness begins for the cat. And she will begin to wake you up to find protection in you.
It is worth noting here that from an early age you must determine where the animal will sleep: with you or on a lounger, for example. The fact is that the cat will get used to one place and only there will it feel comfortable, and any changes invariably lead to stress and anxiety for the animal. If it is unacceptable for you to have an animal sleep with you, then never, under any circumstances, take the animal into bed with you at night.
In the end, it should be emphasized once again that it is best to raise an animal from a young age so that it knows the rules and is accustomed to the daily routine of its owners. Although it is possible to retrain an adult cat, it will be much more difficult. Take care of your animals, but do not forget about education so that you and your pet live in harmony with each other.
Why does a cat wake up early in the morning?
Main reasons:
- Hormonal background. Surges of sex hormones during sexual hunting can provoke cat cries in the morning or even at night. The problem can be solved with the help of a veterinarian, by prescribing hormonal drugs (temporarily), or by completely castrating the animal.
- Diseases. Some diseases are accompanied by pain during movement or bowel movements. If your cat suddenly begins “morning concerts”, it is better to show him to a doctor.
- Stress. After deep psychological trauma (by cat standards), animals often show anxiety by meowing loudly in the morning, seeking support from the owner. This problem can be solved with sedatives (only after consultation with a veterinarian).
- Attracting attention or excess energy. Banal boredom may well become the reason for the awakening of the whole family.
- Hunger. The most common reason why a cat wakes up early in the morning. Felines in the wild are nocturnal hunters; the desire to eat after midnight or early in the morning is normal for a cat.
- Host reinforcements. When a furry pet wants something during the day, shows its desires to the owner and gets what it requires - such reinforcements contribute to the development of the reflex - to ask and show with all its appearance what it needs.
Don't despair if your pet doesn't let you sleep. A correctly identified reason is already half the success.
How to stop waking your cat in the morning
If the reasons for waking up early have nothing to do with psychological or physiological processes, it’s time to start acting. Otherwise, in addition to the owner’s sleep being disturbed, the furniture or wallpaper in the house may suffer - cats can be very persistent when they demand what they need.
The first thing to do is stop giving your cat reinforcements during the day. You need to be patient, cats are distinguished by stubbornness and, so to speak, arrogance - it will not be possible to quickly retrain the animal. But if you follow a constant feeding and sleeping schedule, success is guaranteed. Complete re-education may take from several weeks to several months.
If the reason for morning awakenings is an excess of energy or an insistent demand for attention, you need to kill the cat in the evening. Before going to bed, you need to pay a little attention to your pet, pet it or play with it (at least not let it sleep). In case the owner is very tired, modernity has come up with laser pointers. With their help, you can force a cat to release all the activity accumulated during the day within a few minutes, with minimal energy consumption for a person.
The most common reason is hunger, the easiest way to solve it is that a hearty, late dinner will solve the problem. If the kitty turns out to be a notorious glutton, you can leave the food overnight so that the cat can feed itself.
What to do if nothing helps?
What to do if all methods have been tried, but there is no result:
- Calm down, be patient and ignore all the cat’s attempts to attract attention (both at night and during the day).
- Prepare regular tap water and a spray bottle.
- Whenever destructive behavior occurs, spray water in the cat's face.
Very important - negative reinforcement (water) must be immediate, otherwise punishment does not work. Spraying liquid at a cat is only profitable at the moment of a bad deed, so that next time he thinks about what he wants more - the owner’s attention or a portion of unpleasant sensations. If your pet comes out early in the morning or at night, it is better to keep the spray bottle near the bed.
It is easier to avoid any problem than to look for a solution.
It is better to raise a cat from early childhood, nipping unwanted actions in the bud. Then you won’t have to spend long months on re-education. Share with friends:
The biological clock
In the usual sense for a person - no, but they, of course, have a biological clock, that is, a sense of time and its intervals. Wild cats know exactly what time of day small animals leave their burrows and when it is best to watch for a bird.
Stray cats living in cities hide from the eyes of people or, conversely, come out of their hiding places at certain times of the day when they can feel most safe or expect food.
However, unlike people, cats do not attach any abstract meaning to hours and minutes, but associate them exclusively with some specific action. Therefore, those sufferers whom the cat wakes up in the morning at five o’clock to be fed are themselves to blame for their torment.
