What to do about seriously misbehaving cats?
We have 3 cats, 2 DH (one found at 8 weeks & one at 4 months old) & 1 seal point siamese (adopted from a shelter at 1 year old). They are now 6, 4, and 4.5 years old. We are at our wit’s end with these cats… they have balls like no cats we’ve ever seen & they don’t hesitate to misbehave right in front of us.
-They vomit daily, sometimes multiple times a day. They’ll vomit on anything – couches where they sleep, on counters, on anything left on the floor (shoes!), 1 even threw up into our dishwasher. We have them on a good organic corn/gluten/soy-free cat food & they get fed a generous scoop 2x a day. Sometimes we will give them wet food as a treat. They have plenty of fresh water & two bowls of water to choose from. We don’t have anything out for them to get into & we don’t use any chemicals in the house (only organic natural cleaners).
-The one cat picks his fur out creating bald spots & has constant hairballs because of it. His nervous habits even gave him urinary tract crystals & we had to have him castrated to save his life.
-All 3 will wake us up every morning by scratching & meowing at the bedroom door until we give in. We can’t let them in the bedroom at night because they keep us up & destroy our stuff. They have damaged carpet in doorways & frames from scratching to wake us. We have tried putting a vacuum outside the door with the cord inside our room & plug it in to scare them, but they’ve gotten used to it & will sit there even with the vacuum on! They will also go into the living room & find something to make noise with like pawing at the spring doorstops or smacking the lid of the litter box, anything to make a loud noise to wake us up.
-We can’t have plants, even hung from our 10 foot ceilings. They have actually moved their cat furniture in order to be able to jump & destroy these plants hanging 7 feet from the floor.
-They are on our counters & dining table constantly despite getting yelled at, squirted with a squirt bottle & punished by holding them by the scruff. They show some fear but will go right back on the table 10 minutes later. The siamese is particularly bad & shows no fear of punishment.
-They’ve destroyed our couches & chairs beyond repair. They don’t care if they have bitter apple spray or double sided tape on them, they’ll scratch right through the tape.
-The 1 cat who was found at 4 months old feral & was hit by a car is OBSESSED with food. He’ll break into cupboards (we now have child locks) & will even put his paw down the sink to get to the garbage disposal to pull up scraps – even lemon wedges. He’ll eat anything even if its poisonous or dangerous. He once ate an entire corn cob half WHOLE, we had to take him to the vet. He’ll also eat non-food items like shoe insoles, anything made of silicone like my bakeware, & even electronics cords.
-All 3 are terrible about begging when we’re eating. They will paw at us, meow, try & jump in our laps while we’re eating. The 1 food-obsessed cat will even strike his paw or snap his mouth trying to steal food out of our hand. He’ll sit on top of the fridge & I’ve had him claw me to steal spaghetti out of my hand when I’m straining it!
-They will tip over our trash can no matter what is in it, so we can’t even keep it in the house anymore which is very inconvenient. We’ve tried hanging a trash bag up high on a hook on our back door & they’ll jump until their claws break it & trash is strewn everywhere.
We have a large 3 bedroom home and no children so they have plenty of space to play. We provide them lots of toys & scratching posts & cat furniture of their own, and they have so many windows to watch birds and bugs and lizards out of. They always want our lap & I don’t work so they get plenty of lap time. We give them catnip & we sometimes buy fresh growing cat grass because they love it. They have a large litter box that has pine litter & it’s changed regularly. The only restriction we put on them is we don’t let them in any of the bedrooms because they could stain the carpet with vomit (we have tile throughout the rest). The vet says they’re the healthiest cats they’ve seen – all perfect weights & seem quite happy. They typically only have to go to the vet once a year for their well visit, so they are never in a carrier or caged besides that.
I am losing my patience. I will NEVER give them up, but I need to find a solution to these problems. I’ve tried to distract them when they’re naughty but it doesn’t work. The only thing I can think of is we have moved a lot (in 2010 we lived in 3 states & drove 8 days across country one trip). However each time we’ve moved it has been to a larger home so I thought they would be happier. I just can’t understand why my cats are so bad & why none of the traditional methods of correcting a cat are working for mine. My only other thought