Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I live alone and have a 16 year old male (neutered) who has hyperthyroid condition (on meds) and is in remission from a bout of diabetes. He's a borderline cat and stays on a special diet. He has always been vocal and lets you know what he wants. About a month ago he started this ungodly yelling at night. He was doing it a little during the day but now it starts and goes until I get up. He seems perfectly fine otherwise.
We live out in the country and there are jackrabbits and coyotes roaming around at night that maybe he can see through the sliding door....that's not new. He does have separation anxiety if I leave him someplace when I travel. His appetite is fine...drinks a lot of water which is part of the borderline diabetes thing.
This week we have a 2nd cat staying over while my daughter is in Spain and he is getting louder and prolonged both day and night. Maybe it's attention-getting behavior but he was doing it before.
This is only a guess, but my 19.5 year old cat began doing this gradually over the past few years. He also shows signs of confusion. From reading I have done, it seems these are signs of feline dementia. And before anyone tells me to get him checked at the vet, he has been, and he is otherwise fine for a 19.5 year old cat.
In his case, the howling has just slowly increased with time. He seems to get anxious when he doesn't know where I am, even if I am standing right behind him. And he does howl more often in the morning, when he is hungry (never used to do this when he was younger). What helps is for me to just pet him, speak softly to him, hold him, when he starts yowling, and then he calms right down and starts purring like crazy.
It truly drives me nuts.... but I just think of him as a grouchy old grandpa! lol
Our senior kitties also did this. One was a Siamese who had always been very vocal. As she aged it increased. She became hard of hearing and had cognition issues. She would stalk around the apartment howling in distress, looking around for something and never quite finding it. We adored her and it was heartbreaking to see her in this state.
It also disrupted our sleep. We didn't have a big enough place then to have her sleep away from us so I remember taking my share of naps like a new mother, usually when she slept.
Another cat we had suffered from kidney disease and woke me up 4-5 times a night to eat. She also howled but not nearly the same as our first. Taking care of an elderly pet is hard, no doubt about it. I just tried to do the caregiving and have our needs met too.
Some people swear by the Feliway diffusers that calm their cats. I would guess too that a new cat in your home would upset him, and he may settle down some after that is over. None of my cats ever tolerated "intruders."
But my guess is that he is just dealing with aging.
Another vote for having the blood pressure checked, and check his thyroid blood levels too. He may need a change in his medication dose. The diabetes will cause drinking excessively and peeing a lot, his meds may not be getting absorbed properly.
A vet check and blood work is definitely the first step.
I agree. A vet re-check just to make sure meds don't need adjusting and/or bp is off or there's something new.
Or it could be, as others have experienced (me included), that it's an aging thing. If any of his senses, such as hearing or sight, are diminishing, that can cause confusion. If your house is pitch-black during the night, maybe turn on a low-wattage light or plug in some night lights. Perhaps his night vision is no longer what it was and he's anxious because he just can't see?
I agree with some of the posters here. I have a 17 year old cat who over the years makes his "where are you?" cry more than usual, especially at night. He would walk into my closet or bathroom, and cry. I would gently then call out his name and he would stop, continues his patrol and cries in a different bathroom. I used to be able to move his litterbox with no problem. He knew where the new location was but ventures into the old spot and cries until I put his 2nd litterbox there.
He is a healthy kitty other than the renal failure, growing signs of cataracts and mild arthritis.
It's possible he is losing his hearing. Our (late) Tucker did a lot of yowling in the last year of his life--age 15 or so--and he lost most of his hearing within six months or so.
Yep, my older cat, 16, is starting that business now, too. She's getting very demanding with her requests. We have a bond so I know her meow for "water" and "food", and there have been times that she legitimately complained because I didn't realize that the dogs drank all the water in the 2 hours from the last time I had refreshed it.
But as someone else pointed out, and I also read about dementia, she acts like she doesn't know where I am, and I can be a foot away from her. I know she can see me because when I talk to her during these, what I call, "screaming at me" episodes, she stares at me and keeps doing it. But she can see, so no, she's not blind.
The only thing that shuts her up is telling her to come over to me, and petting her. That's what she wants 98% of the time she does this screaming business. She just wants attention. I try to give her a ton more than I used to, which is hard because I already gave her a ton before, but some of the other cats are really, really vying for my attention lately, as well. (Moving I think caused some of this.) She gets jealous, and will shove between me and them to get as close to me as possible...which is something else that I read somewhere about aging cats.
When behavior changes, of course take them to a vet to get them checked out, which it looks like you did, and then just give them a boat load more attention than they were getting. In the case of my cat, if I smother the snot out of her with attention, she calms down and "goes to her room", which is on top of some boxes in the closet, and sleeps.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
