Forums » Smalltalk » Some concerns with a pet

I've had a cat named Oscar and he is almost seven years old. I do love the cat dearly but as he has gotten older, he's been doing more and more stupid and reckless things that he knows not to do, such as recently where he climbed on top of the mantle over the fire place and knocked a big picture frame down, breaking it. He's clawed up the carpets in our old house and the new one we moved into about four months ago. Him and Elmo both seemed to adjust fine to the house, he seemed more comfortable in it since he wasn't running around in the middle of the night anymore. But he just got worse and he has gotten to the point that we can't handle taking care of him. We got him nice food, a scratching post, and he finds toys to play with but he still chooses to claw up the couch, claw up the doors when he wants inside, and, just Monday morning, he climbed to the roof of the house and got himself stuck up there. He had done that in the past so he knew better than to do it again but he did.

With these behaviors, I had worried if he developed some kind of mental problem or brain tumor. My parents don't want to take him to a vet so my dad has already taken him to another neighborhood with a can of food and a bowl of water so he could find a new family but I wanted advice on what might've been wrong. He is the only cat we've had do this, but he is also the only one we got fixed when he was around six months old. Our other cat, Elmo, never acted this way and was always a very chill cat, though he was a stray that just decided to hang around me and my family.

How long was he scratching the couch before you got him a scratching post? It sounds like he was in need of proper training. Basically whenever you see him scratch the couch, pick him up and put him by the post. Then whoever you see him use the post instead of the couch, give him a treat.

Here are some good tips for such training.

While it seems to be too late for Oscar, it might come in handy for any future cats.

Thank you for that. He had scratched at the couch ever since we got him. We got the post just a couple months ago but he never used it, though the problem was that neither one of the cats could really use it. Mg stepmother just bought the cheapest one which was obviously meant for kittens to play on since our smallest cat, Elmo, who isn't a foot tall even on his hind legs, couldn't fit in it.

We also tried to get them both to use it by putting some cat nip on it to reinforce the psotive aspect of it for them.

Yeah so he was in the habit of scratching the couch and habits don't change overnight. It also seems that the post was a bad fit as well.

Some cats do start to change and act oddly as they get older, however what Oscar is doing/did goes out of the norm. A vet visit could have probably helped, unless it was a behavioral thing - sometimes people and animals just decide they need to act differently, and that's that.

He sounded super wound up over something. If it was an outdoor cat or indoor and outdoor, there may have been a new cat lurking around that made him flip out for some reason, and he wanted to reassert his dominance, even if it was just over some curtains and the couch.

Scratching posts work for some cats and not for others. My cat, Ruffles, for example, will not use a scratching post for whatever reason. She will, however, claw up cardboard scratch pads just fine. Sometimes you have to get in there with a nail clipper and just trim them yourself.

If Oscar is coming back to your home, keep suggesting a vet visit. This is behavior that usually indicates he is in distress for some reason, and a vet visit might be the key to calming him down.

He hasn't come back to the house so far and I don't know where my dad took him, just that he is gone.

He had always acted off since he got older. He was a smart kitten and took fine to indoor living for a year then Elmo came around and so we would let them both out because they wanted out. I know in the old house, Oscar was terrified of going back outside after seeing a snake and my dad killing it by shooting the snake because it was trying to get into our garage and at the time, we wouldn't have been able to find it till it was too late and bite me or my sister, which she doesn't have a strong enough immune system to fight off snake venom long enough to get her to the hospital though I could last longer so my strong immune system.

Though, I figured to try taking him to the vet, I suggested it for years since he always acted this way. We would have to stop him form scratching up his favorite chair, which we don't have anymore and he would run on the hardwood floors with his claws out in the old house. I figured he knew when something bad was about to happen because he was behaving well once he realized he was going to be taken away but he also just pushed the boundaries with our family by breaking stuff, clawing up the floor, and meowing outside any window he could, more so if he saw a light outside it. His favorite person to bug till they woke up was me because he had easy access to my room because my window is on the porch. He was smart but he did a lot of stupid things and never seemed to understand what was wrong. His pupils would get really big when he was doing stuff and did something stupid, like knocking the photo off the mantle and climbing to the roof.

And he was a picky eater when it came to human food. I know it isn't good to give cats anything other than meats since they are carnivores, but Oscar would rarely ever eat the ham or bacon we would offer him. I've told my dad to stop giving our other cat, Elmo, ham and stuff because he has been throwing up a lot but by the look of it, it might be the cat food we are giving him because that is the coloring of the vomit we have seen, never the actual meat so I think his body is just too used to the softer texture of animal meat so his body can't take the cat food, more so since he doesn't take his time to chew the food like Oscar did and he always favored in hunting for his food instead of eating cat food.

It doesn't sound medical to me - this is all acting out behavior in some form or another. Knocking things down is often used as a means of getting attention. Scratching furniture is done to mark it with his scent because there's nowhere else to mark that frequently used area. And cats like to climb on high and tall things without realizing they'll have to get back down too. Dilated pupils means he's readying himself to release pent up energy as he locks onto a target to 'kill'.

I have two scratching posts on either side of my couch, right up against it. My cats don't scratch the couch anymore since I've done that, because the posts' scent and my scent are now in the same place, and it's no longer necessary to mark the couch. They now own that location as much as I do, which gave them confidence. Whenever I don't play enough with my cats, don't stimulate their hunting instincts enough, they become obnoxious and start knocking things over and destroying things. The solution is very simply to just play with them in ways that engage their instincts, exhaust them to the point where they're panting and refuse to move, then give them high protein treats (or breakfast/lunch/dinner) to put them into groom-and-sleep mode afterwards.

I trim their claws because they aren't used to so many doors in our home (I moved from a studio with only one bathroom door to an apartment with 5 doors) and they scratch at the doors to make it known they want to go into the rooms - a firm "NO" and ignoring their attempts to get in otherwise makes it stop pretty quickly, and they're doing it less and less because I'm not caving and ensuring their needs are met everywhere else.

I feel like Oscar's issues may be a result of his humans not fully understanding his needs. He might not be feeling like he owns the house, which is vital for cats' well being. (Him not running around the house could be a sign of his insecurities.) Because his insecurities might not have been addressed properly, the unwanted behavior progressively got worse. Cats, just like dogs, need direction from their humans on what is and isn't desired. They need a lot of work to get the desired behavior by meeting their needs.

You might also want to be careful with feeding cats pork. Pork can contain parasites that humans aren't bothered by, but they can make cats very ill (it's why you'll never find raw pork in a raw cat diet). While cooked meats are less likely to have intact parasites, I don't take the chances and don't feed mine any kind of pork ever. Lots of human food is also too salty and not good for them, so it's probably a good idea to stop feeding them anything other than cat food. If kibble isn't to their liking, any wet food will do.

Thank you all for the advice! This is my parents house so I can not do anything about why they do with the cats but I will keep this information in mind when I get my own place and use this information for the cats I'll get because I do plan on having my own pets of various kinds. I know that if I get both cats and dogs to introduce them to each other at a young age.