MEOW!

[Nemesis]

Can you train a cat to stop meowing?

He meows at 5:30 in the am...when we're still sleeping. He wont' stop, and will ramp it up by scratching the walls (no damage, but makes a racket). We've tried giving him what he wants (water, food, clean litter box, etc) but it seems that he only wants some attention. Ignoring it didn't make it stop, and made for some really grumpy sleepless weeks while we tried that out!

So, then we tried aversion methods: spraying him with a water bottle, kicking him out of the bedroom, yelling, etc. Everything was attempted for at least 2 weeks at a time, and we were very consistent.

Right now we are closing him into a bedroom far away from ours the first time he meows. Then, when we want to get up, we let him out and give him love and attention.

Any other suggestions? We are moving to a house where all the bedrooms are close together so this solution won't last for long!
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Everyone thinks I do it to make people stare, but really, it's to keep them from looking too closely.

[tinyrock]

Cats are such jerks!

How much activity is he getting during the day? Can you add a few 10 minute play sessions? I actually clicker-trained my cat, and fed him maybe half his evening meal that way.

Can you lock him out of the bedroom at night, before he starts meowing? It sounds like you're realized he's just after attention, and even picking him up to take him somewhere else may be enough reinforcement. If he likes toys, maybe you can have some that you take out before bedtime and leave with him?

[PrickleyPete]

They have plug-in cat pheromone diffusers that might help if he is feeling a bit of anxiety. I don't know how well they work but if it were me I would start trying different things out of desperation.
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If you don't talk to your cat about catnip, someone else will.

[agnes]

No. Cats are such dicks about this.

When I had a bedroom door that closed, I shut the cats out at night. The doorknob was loose... somehow gray kitty learned that he could make the most god awful noise by rattling the knob. I don't even know how a cat achieved this, let alone how he thought it up. But he would do it every freaking morning. We started hanging a shoe on the doorknob, but he just knocked it down and rattled away.
The stupid other cat when we let them back in would jump on the dresser and one by one knock things off onto the (hardwood) floor. Then if that didn't work, she would jump across the bed landing once on each of our pillows.

My recommendation would be that kitty spends the night in this other room, every night, and you let him out when you get up.
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Well, at least I wasn't the one who puked on the floor. --greenbean