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sneakyplant

Cat Crying

sneakyplant
18 years ago

About two months ago, I adopted two female cats from the local animal shelter. Both are fixed and checked out fine, they are not related, but were kept in the same enclosure at the shelter and get along well. They sleep together, give each other baths, and play.

The older one, Mandarin, has a yowling problem. She starts at different times in the middle of the night. At first I thought it was fear of being in a new house, but now both cats seem quite comfortable. The food/water bowls are checked and filled before bed time. Litter box is cleaned, also. There is nothing wrong with her medically, no UTI. She is allowed to sleep in bed with me and the other cat, and often does. However, she wakes up walks to a different part of the house and starts crying. I thought maybe it was the dark, so I leave lights on, but this hasn't helped. Now sometimes she does it in the middle of the day. The three of us sit down to watch TV and she'll walk off to another room and cry.

I've had cats for 21 years, but this is new to me. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Comments (30)

  • cblanco
    18 years ago

    My two cats call to eachother a lot at night. If there are two of them one is probably calling to the other.

  • laurief_gw
    18 years ago

    Some cats really enjoy the sound of their own voices. They particularly enjoy finding places where their voice echoes and amplifies. I have a large indoor riding arena where my neutered male, Billy, loves to yowl just for the heck of it. I have never had one of my cats yowl in my presence. They always seem to walk out of sight before they start yowling. I suspect it's an attention seeking strategy, though it can certainly be bothersome in the middle of the night.

    It's just a cat thing.

    Laurie

  • irishdancersgram
    18 years ago

    My Clancy, a neutered tabby, yowls alot and I really thought something was hurting, but now I think he just likes to show his authority..He does get an upset stomach if he eats the wrong thing or too much and then he cries, but when he doesn't want the other cats around him, he'll let out a yell and they scatter...We got him when our oldest was about 10 and since then adopted 2 little girls, but Clancy still thinks he's the boss...Maybe it's a "man" thing...

  • cynthia_gw
    18 years ago

    Peter would yowl at 1AM in the morning, roaming about listening to himself. No cat can make the same noise that he did. I still miss him, and he's been gone for more than 5 years.

  • bleulune
    18 years ago

    when my cat was a kitty,and was just taken to my house,she always cried at night,then i held her in my arms,and gradually she didn't cry,and fell asleep.just like a little child,very funny...

  • sable_ca
    18 years ago

    Yowling at night is one of the first symptoms of hyperthyroidism in a cat. Did you have her checked for that when you verified that she doesn't have a UTI? If not, I would have her checked again, ASAP. HyperT is very serious, but is easily controlled. If she doesn't have it, then you've ruled out a common problem. To find out more, just google hyperthyroid cat symptoms -

    Good Luck!

  • sneakyplant
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    I think she is yowling so someone will get up and play with her. But this mommy has to work in the morning so it's not happening. She was checked for hyperT at the shelter. I don't think she could have developed it in the few months I've had her since she weighs 12 pounds and is gaining.

  • sally2_gw
    18 years ago

    My cats yowl when they've caught something. They like to announce it. It could be a roach, or a mouse, but they're proud and want to brag.

    Sally

  • broodyjen
    18 years ago

    My female cat yowls sometimes in the middle of the night (and occasionally, during the day). If I ask her what's the matter, she ususally will come to me, and be quiet. I think she's just lonely when she does it.

  • sally2_gw
    18 years ago

    Don't you just wish they could speak our language or we could understand theirs? I keep telling my cat, and the cat at work, who loves to talk, to speak english! What's silly is that she'll start meowing, and meowing, and I'll ask her what's the matter, and then I'll realise that she's trying to tell me by meowing. That's when I tell her to speak english! I've come to the conclusion that the cat at work just likes to talk. I mean, we like to talk, so I guess that cats do, also. Wouldn't it be nice if your cat would save it's stories until daytime?

    Sally

  • jannie
    18 years ago

    My female cat age 13 howls at night. She's been doing it all her life. I think she's just bored or lonely. Cats are nocturnal, it is normal to be active at night.

  • susanjn
    18 years ago

    We used to have a cat who, in his later years, started meowing at night. Being well trained and loyal cat staff, we would go get him and bring him to bed. He'd purr, then go off to another room and do it again. Never did figure out the problem.

    We have a book about the care of older cats which says this is common.

  • Mystical Manns
    18 years ago

    My Midnight is 17 ... in the past couple of years she's started yowling, sometimes at night and sometimes in the middle of the day. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

    This is a different yowl than the full-of-mouth mumbled yowl when she comes running in with a field mouse.

  • User
    18 years ago

    LOL! I wouldn't worry too much. I used to have a cat years ago who did this...one of my cats now does it as well. Seems she will leave the bed in the middle of the night and go upstairs to yowl. I yell at her to come back, and she does. I think she gets lonesome and wants everyone else to wake up!

  • sneakyplant
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    I think I was misleading in my first post, but the older one isn't old. The two I adopted are 1 and 3 years, I just meant she was older than the other.

    We've figured out the crying thing. Apparently kitty is partly Siamese which is a very talkative breed. She is a red flame point and has some tabby in her. The tabby is what threw us off, but we stopped looking at the markings and noticed the eyes and face structure. She was quiet, but now that she is comfortable with us we all have an earful to listen to when we get home.

    Oh well, a home can't operate without a few cats around to keep us on track after their 18-hour naps.

  • sneakyplant
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    I think I was misleading in my first post, but the older one isn't old. The two I adopted are 1 and 3 years, I just meant she was older than the other.

    We've figured out the crying thing. Apparently kitty is partly Siamese which is a very talkative breed. She is a red flame point and has some tabby in her. The tabby is what threw us off, but we stopped looking at the markings and noticed the eyes and face structure. She was quiet, but now that she is comfortable with us we all have an earful to listen to when we get home.

    Oh well, a home can't operate without a few cats around to keep us on track after their 18-hour naps.

  • cnvh
    18 years ago

    Sally2, one of our cats does the same thing whenever she "acquires" somthing she sees as a prize-- and it's never something alive, always something like a bottle cap or rubber band she's found in the basement. It's too funny...

  • chara_ct
    18 years ago

    I think you've figured it out, but I am the owner of a yowler, too! Alexander was 16 when I adopted him (and his two "sisters") and although all three of them are happy, spoiled cats, a few months later I woke up to hearing yowls that made my blood curdle! I jumped up and went to find the source only to see him sitting on the floor perfectly fine! I jokingly wonder if the cats ended up at the shelter because of their nocturnal noises!!(Actually their owner was elderly and had to give them up!)

    I learned about "Hypervocalization" and in fact, he is Himalayan so he has Siamese genes. It's so loud I can hear it outside! I had to tell my neighbor about it so she doesn't think I'm beating him:)

    Since he mostly does it at night, I trained him to sleep on the bed with me so he's not wandering around at night. On the occasions he does it, I call to him "Mister Alexander, come upstairs' and he does.

    Now his little baby sister (they aren't blood related but were raised in the same house)has started a crying meow around bedtime when she is looking for some snuggling. Fortunately, she is basically enroute to me at that point so it only lasts for a minute or two until she jumps up on the bed to be let under the covers! She's about 8 years old and only 5 lbs so hopefully it won't get much worse!!!

    The worst part is that I had some houseguests who couldn't get a good night's sleep with all the noises (they called them "non-human" noises!) going on but as cat lovers they were good natured about it.

  • marie_d
    17 years ago

    This is all very reassuring. Me and my partner have adopted a cat last year and we have since moved to a new flat. Silvia is 9 years old and healthy (although I'll take her to the vet to check on UTI), but she started yowling about 1 week after we moved to our new place. She is allowed to sleep on the bed at our feet but she then goes off in the middle of the night and goes yowling in the bathroom or entrance corridor.
    Once we call her name she comes back to the bedroom and then lays down and starts puring.
    She is a very communicative cat and 'speak' to us a lot (she makes those sounds between pur and miaowing as if she was having a conversation with us). We don't have a garden which I feel guilty about as I think animals should enjoy outdoor life but the flat is huge and quite a good play area.
    I think she is just bored and lonely. We thought of getting a kitten so they could play togetehr and keep each other company. But would that just make things worse?
    Thanks for your suggestions!

  • Rudebekia
    17 years ago

    I want to echo the post of Sable, above. Since your kitties are so young, this probably doesn't apply to them. But as Sable said, the onset of yowling is a symptom of hyperthyroidism. I don't know why--it is curious, but I just went through it. My 8 year old cat began yowling at night about three months ago. I thought he just wanted me to stay up longer to play. But he soon began to exhibit other signs of hyperthyroidism, most notably craving food yet losing weight. He was diagnosed with the illness, treated with radiation therapy, and had not yowled since the treatment. 8 is young to have hyperthyroid, but my vet says she's seen it occasionally in even younger cats.

  • coolmama
    17 years ago

    My cat yowls at night sometimes. Usually because he does want to play and gets all energetic before we go to sleep. Then he is left alone and is yowling for attention I think.
    He also yowls when my husband leaves for work in the morning. He sits in the window and watches him leave and cries like a baby.

  • 4brianoutloud_email_com
    15 years ago

    I have a similar, but unique situation....My girlfriend volunteers at a shelter. She got me to go with her one day, and I convinced her to take home a beautiful 2 year old female named Morticia that I took a liking to. (she already had 2 cats) All the cats seemingly got along fine.
    Several months later, we rescued a feral cat from the brink of death who lived in the woods outside her house. Her lease only allows for 2 cats.....4 would be pushing it, so I took Morticia back to my house. The first week was great, but then she started yowling thru the night. Not every night....she'll do 3 or 4 nights in a row, then rest her voice a night or two. I have a dog and a cat about the same age as her, and they all get along great. Complicating this is the fact that you CANNOT pick this cat up. She's beautiful, loves attention, and beams at you when you pet her.....but pick her up and she flies into an immediate frenzy. The second she hits the ground it's forgotten and she's back to beaming at you. How can I fix this?? I need to sleep!!!
    On a side note, while my girlfriend had Morticia, her male cat took to licking the fur off of his belly and legs. The vets thought it was a nervous condition. Her other cat peed on area rugs in the kitchen and livingroom. Since Morticia left, both problems are gone.....Sorry for such a long post!!

  • Elly_NJ
    15 years ago

    Can you close your bedroom door?

    It's a good idea to start a new thread with a new question.

  • jenc511
    15 years ago

    Welcome to my world. :)

    I have a Siamese and a DSH that puts any Siamese to shame. Lucy, the DSH, screeches, mews, meows, yaps, yells, etc. 24/7. That's actually why we got her. We really wanted a Siamese, but the one I went to look at had already been adopted, and the little slinky black kitty kept screaming at us the whole time were at the shelter. We took her home, and she hasn't shut up since. She screams at us about everything. I have a friend who thinks we're nuts to put up with her because he always hears her in the background when we talk on the phone. If Lucy is quiet for more than twenty seconds, we can "reset" her by petting her and starting her up again, lol.

    Short of any health problems, your cat may just be a loudmouth.

  • lilacs_of_may
    15 years ago

    I've heard that some black cats do have Siamese in their background. I used to have a small black cat that would caterwaul like a Siamese constantly.

    My cats will often "call" when they're in another part of the house, or they'll just walk through the house calling. My purebred Ragdoll (former shelter cat) doesn't yowl. He trills when he wants attention or is feeling affectionate. And sometimes one of them will pick up a toy or plastic ring and walk through the house yowling around it. It's funny to hear them because they can't do a proper yowl with their mouths closed.

  • cybrian
    15 years ago

    You can hear her even with the bedroom door closed...she's LOUD. The funny thing is, she never did this at my girlfriends house or at the shelter.

  • jenc511
    15 years ago

    cybrian, was she locked out of the bedroom at your girlfriend's house? I can't even imagine the racket we'd have to put up with if we locked the cats out of the bedroom. My Siamese is madly in love with my SO, and she has no problem screaming about all the injustices in the world if she is ever prevented from total access to him (this is even more aggravating since I am the only one who actually feeds the cats - good luck if I die, you ungrateful felines!) This seems to have been somewhat aggravated by the steroids she's on, so I've just given in to the psycho-stalker elderly Siamese moving in on my boyfriend.

  • User
    15 years ago

    our Himalayan does this. He has since he was little (10 now) for him it's when he wants attention. He'll run somewhere house and meow and meow. You yell his name and he comes runnin. All happy and purring. This is somewhat irritating at night when we're sleeping. He has a little ball he carries around in his mouth at times when he wants to play and he'll cry/meow with that. Sometimes he'll bring it to you. We really try and spend a lot of time with both our cats. Just recently moved so I think now they're feeling even more attention needy than before. Good luck!

  • sunniedelux
    15 years ago

    i adopted a short haired white cat 2 yrs. ago. and its not a problem i'm having with her, just curiosity. well, normally in the morning i'll wake up and go upstairs and use the computer, meanwhile my cat will be downstairs, and i'm assuming she thinks she's alone because she'll bite one of her teddy bears and then start meowing until i come and look to see what the problem is. but when i do, she'll just look at me, so i decide to go back upstairs, and then she comes running after me. why would she do this? is she crying for attention?

  • phatbabiesmomma
    15 years ago

    Hi, by the time I had to go register, etc I lost you, but I am writing to the one who's kitty bites her while she is petting him/her and then looks at her strangly. I have experienced this and I think it is when you touch a sensitive point that to kitty is sexual which confuses him and he bites like a normal male will bite the female in the neck to have sex.Then when he looks at you he is confused by what just happened, look for a center point that sets off the behaivor, one is his hind haunches and he sticks his butt up in the air and look around oddly and quickly, like who did that?It seems to be a trigger you are setting off that surprizes and catches kitty offguard. I may be way off base, but I've had 2 kitties in my life who acted this way, both were males and both would look at me so weird after he'd bite me. I hope this helps you, Please let me know what you discover.ok? Thanks