We’re trying to prevent the cat scratching at the door to be let in the bedroom at night. The only solution that seems to work is spraying her with a handheld spray bottle when she scratches.
The problem with this is it requires one of us to open up the door a crack and spray her. This interrupts our sleep, obviously. But so does the constant scratching.
I had the idea to build some kind of remote spray bottle that would sit to the side of the door. If we heard her scratching it’d simple be a matter of pressing a button.
So any ideas on how to do this? Alternately I could arrange the sprayer so it was tripped with an infrared beam/motion detector.
My first thought was buying a cheap remote control car and using the motor of the car rigged up somehow to squeeze the trigger of the sprayer. Then I’d leave the remote on the nightstand.
Aluminum foil, on the door and in front of it - she ignores it, doesn’t phase her
Vinegar on the door - ignored
Double sided tape on the door - surprised at first then ignored
Anti cat furniture pads on the floor - she deftly avoids the spikes or ignores them, not sure which
Anyway, all those solutions are practical. I want to build a remote controlled water gun!
Why not get some of the cat repellent sprays from any Pet Smart? If applied correctly, the cat won’t bother door. In fact, it won’t go near it. But usually this kind of thing can be cured by squirting/yelling at the cat a few times. It’s odd that it continues. Do you let the cat in when you aren’t sleeping? If so, stop doing that. Keep the door closed at all times so the cat will understand that it’s not allowed to be in that room. We have 6 cats, and this works for us. In fact, if the door IS left open, they will sit at it and not come in. Sometimes they start to sneak in just a bit, but you just say their name and they run back. They know they aren’t allowed. We’ve been able to cure scratching at the door pretty quickly, actually.
We lock one cat out of the bedroom and it’s absolutely necessary. She will invariably wake up at 2am and start playing with everything in the room. I love her and wish she could hang out with us at night but it’s not going to happen until she gets older and mellows out some.
My grandma has a cat like that. She’s had to lock it in the bathroom every night since he was a kitten. Don’t worry – it’s nice in there: he has his food and his water and some cat treats and a big comfy pillow to sleep on and a night light so he won’t get scared of the dark. Sometimes he goes in there during the day to hang out alone.
She’s tried to leave him roaming around at night, but invariably he starts playing with everything at 1:30 or 2am: watch this! I can tip the lamp over if I just… MEOOWWWWWW??? ARE YOU WATCHING??? And then dashes under the bed where grandma can’t reach. Repeat until 6am, or grandma gives up and puts him in his bathroom.
I’d like to say he’s sweet otherwise, but he’s not. He’s very smart and knows exactly what pisses you off. And doesn’t hesitate to do that.
That’s exactly my situation. Heh. We lock her out of the bedroom, but she has the run of the house otherwise.
She gets us back in the morning though. She’s learned what time we get up, so she sits outside the door and once her internal clock tells her we should be getting up she starts whining and crying until we’re forced to get up.
Two words: Scat Mat. It’s a small rubber mat with a wire woven through it that gives 'em a very mild, yet uncomfortable, electric shock if they step on it. Had one several years ago – the little box in the corner puts out little electric pulses that, if you put your hand on it, feel about like what you’d get if you shuffled around on shag carpet in your socks for five minutes, then touched the faucet.
Edit: That’s at its strongest level, btw, the one I had could be set for a much lower-level pulse, which kind of tickled.
Our cat is our alarm, in fact. This cat will religiously start smacking the blinds at exactly, -exactly- 8:02 AM. If that doesn’t work, there’s a lampshade with a little play to it, just enough to bump and rub noisily without tipping anything over. She will insist on it until someone goes down to feed her, or she avoids a couple of assassination attempts via extra pillows.
At that point, she goes into snooze mode, because half an hour later…
All in all, she is very concerned that we might be late for something.
I misread this as “help me build a remote spayer” and was prepared to approach the project with gusto and great enthusiasm. Sadly reading the other replies disabused me of my misconception.
We had the exact same problem with our kitten when we first got her a few years ago. Always scratching at the door, tape and foil didn’t work, to busy having fun at night in the bedroom to let her in, but she grew out of it and now the doors always open and she’ll sleep with us at the foot of the bed at night.
What ended up helping was leaving a window cracked at night with a screen, oddly enough. She was distracted enough to just sit and look out the window for hours at a time. I also set up a feather toy at night to keep her distracted as well. A few bangs and crashes from the other room but nothing too bad.
We used to have a remote control citronella spray collar for our dog. He would bark and we were supposed to use the remote to give him a spray of citronella. Supposedly more humane than shock collars, but we never really used it because it freaked him out.
Just mount some hooks on a wall, stick the gun on them, and run a string from the trigger into the nearest window in such a way that you can pull the trigger with the string.
My male cat used to do the wake-up-and-play-at-2am thing. Each time he knocked stuff off of shelves or whatnot, he would then walk over to scrutinize my face from a few feet away for a minute or two, to see if I was reacting yet. Rinse and repeat.
Sometimes he would ascend the tallest structure in the high-ceilinged bedroom we had at the time, target my often-not-empty bladder and take a flying leap right onto me. I could almost hear him say, “Kowabunga” as he did it. This he did less often, because although it was effective at getting me up, it also guaranteed a speedy retaliation.
Locking him elsewhere only inspired him to mess with the door. He couldn’t stand even the idea of there being a closed door, much less one that inhibits his movements. Even today, there are few doors that he can’t get open eventually without a lock or obstruction. So after doing our best to ignore his antics for several months, he finally just stopped doing it.
