Clawing through the door!

[Aimala]

Help!

I have two cats, Purrl (7 year old female), and Sebastian (1 year old male). It turns out that I am severely allergic to my cats! I am on lots of allergy meds now, but I cannot have them sleep in the bed next to my head like they used to, or I will end up in the ER. We have to close the bedroom door at night to keep them from sleeping next to me. Purrl hates being closed out of the bedroom. She keeps trying to claw her way into the room. She has actually torn the carpet in half down to the sub-floor trying to get in!

We've put down rugs to protect the carpet, but Purrl's clawing and crying keeps us awake at night. We've tried everything we can think of:

• Spritzing her with water
• Doing the "mother cat" discipline by holding the back of her neck down and hissing at her
• Using a boundary spray that is supposed to keep cats out of areas they shouldn't go into
• Using an anti-scratching spray that is supposed to keep cats from clawing at things

None of these work - she just plows through them all!

Some nights, she doesn't act out at all, whereas other times, she tries to get in all night. It's painful to hear her so miserable, and my husband and I don't get much sleep.

This has been going on for four months now... any suggestions? Declawing her is not an option, nor is adopting her out to someone (I inherited Purrl after my dad passed away).

Thanks everyone!

[Karen]

I am glad you are not considering declawing, thank you! Have you tried a baby gate outside the door to just keep her away from it? Can you play some white noise or music so you won't hear her as much, or wear ear plugs? Could you put some scratching posts near the door so she can vent her frustration on them, and then gradually move them further away from the door slowly? Any hope of wearing her out with heavy playtime before bed so she's too tired to try, or taking the opposite approach and shutting in another room, like the kitchen for the night?

Does catnip mellow her out?

How does she feel about fans? Would a big window fan set up blowing air at her keep her deterred from the door? (I know some cats think fans eat delicate little kitties and others just HATE their fur being ruffled ...

[Moesha]

What about trimming her nails? I know that won't stop the problem, but it may help prevent her from doing more damage.

[Aimala]

Wow! Thank you both for the great ideas. We had not thought of any of them. We are going to try the scratching post and cat nip tonight. Wish us luck!

[Karen]

Do let us know how it goes!

[aTailOf2Kitties]

I've got shredded carpet in several doorways from the same thing, LOL. When they want in or out of a closed door, they really want in or out of a closed door! My guys accidentally shut themselves into my home office once and my brand new carpet paid the price. Havoc was probably playing with a toy between the door and the wall and pushed the door shut from inside.

Cats don't like the smell of mothballs. You might want to put one near the door, if you can stand the smell yourself. But it might be too strong for kitty's nose to be in the house at all. Then again if you've already tried other repellants, this might not work anyway.

[tokolosh]

If you think it might be partly because she hates being separated from you, do you think it would help to give her something with your smell on it to keep her company overnight, like an item of clothing you'd been wearing all day? Obviously she'll know it's not you, but I did this for Limpet when we had to board her or have her in hospital and I think it helped a little.

Another thought I have is probably just a pointless observation. Cats apparently have these really interesting territorial arrangements. They claim turf chunks, which they patrol - but the turf chunks shift around over a 24-hour cycle. So for instance, if your bedroom comes onto the Patrol Schedule in the middle of the night, you'll have a cat that ignored that same room all day but suddenly Absolutely Positively Has To Walk Through There at 3am. My son suffered from this, and I can't really say knowing why she was doing it helped much with his sleep disturbance. But it was fascinating.