meowing driving us nuts

by cher
(massachusetts)

we have a 4 year old nuetered male cat that will meow at all different times of the day no matter if his favorite person wich is our daughter, is home or not. He is free fed, and wtered ,and complete run of the house as do all the cats. This first started when my daughter closed her door to keep him out of her room, but now her door has been open and he still cries like he wants something.Its at all times of the day and night. he never has any tender spots and is eating and drinking. im about to give the cat away becaus eno matter what we do , like yelling squirting, or distracting him with a loud noise, seem to work. i cant stand it!!! he is always into everything, i have to lock my entire house up like i have kids. he got into the walls of our house thru the attick by running past us when we went in there.my husband had to cut the floor boards to get him out. i hate this cat. if it wasnt for my daughter i would have found a new home for him by now. what can i do!!!

Answer by Kate
It sounds to me like your cat is bored. he may free run of the house but if there is nothing there to keep him amused and stimulated then he will seek some distraction from you. So the meowing is for your attention, what ever that may be.

My best advice is to ask you to see my web pages about cat meowing behaviour, cat discipline and also about how to keep an indoor cat entertained. i will put the pages at the bottom of this reply.

The meowing is a learned behaviour, he is not trying to get to you but if he's bored then he knows he gets some sort of attention by doing it, so first you have to takeaway his reason from doing it, i.e make his environment more interesting and second you have to stop reacting to the meowing. This is hard I know but he will eventually realise that he does not get what he wants by meowing and should stop.

Here are the pages
https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-meowing.html
https://www.our-happy-cat.com/indoor-cats.html
https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-discipline.html

I hope you can sort something out as you shouldn't have to hate your cat. They should be a part of your family and something that brings joy rather than heartache.

best wishes Kate

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