Cat Hanging From Doorknob

I don’t think I had even one good hour of sleep last night. Between Mother’s Day carb-loading at lunch yesterday, no workout, an afternoon nap, too much caffeine, and a late bedtime, the deck was stacked against me from the start. Oh, wait – I think I forgot the main reason I didn’t sleep well last night.

That would be the cat-hanging-from-the-doorknob routine.

For several weeks now, the cats have taken to meowing pathetically and pawing at my bedroom door in the morning when they think it’s time for me to get up. I may have written about this before. Strangely, their idea of when I should get up doesn’t generally match my own. For a while I would race out of bed and downstairs to give them breakfast, thinking they were hungry, but half the time I’d get down there and they’d have plenty of food. They were just bored and wanted attention.

Eventually, I got to the point where I could tune out the meowing and pawing, and so I’d just get out of bed when I was good and damn ready.

The cats changed strategies, and began the body-slamming method of waking me up. As you might guess, that consisted of getting a good running start and then smashing directly into the bedroom door. Fifteen times in a row. That didn’t last long, so it probably hurt their little heads or something.

Abby continues to test the pawing method, and now she does it when I’m in the bathroom with the door closed as well.

Marco has upgraded to the hanging-from-the-doorknob method.

Marco might look like a big lug, but he’s not a dumb cat. He has evidently figured out that the doorknob has something to do with opening the bedroom door, and since Marco wants to be where I am at all times, he really wants to get that bedroom door open. For the last several nights, he’s been jumping up and grabbing the doorknob, over and over again, sometimes for an hour or more. From inside the room, I can see the doorknob moving, and I hear him swing for a second, then scrabble against the door as he falls off. Then he’ll jump again. He’s heavy, so this is all a very loud process, and no amount of ignoring/yelling/Penny Pig shaking will deter him. And he cries the whole time.

I’m kind of at a loss. I really don’t function well on such a shitty excuse for sleep, but I don’t know what I can do to make him stop. I’m fairly sure it’s a separation anxiety thing, as he seriously sticks very close to me whenever I’m home, and I don’t necessarily want to reward it but on the other hand, maybe I should just let them sleep in my room again. Maybe they’re old enough now that they won’t walk on my face and headbutt me and crawl under the covers and bite my ass the way they used to when they were kittens.

Oh, I am so very very tired today.

8 Replies to “Cat Hanging From Doorknob”

  1. Aren’t cats nocturnal? If you let them into your room while YOU sleep, won’t THEY be awake and putzing around and bothering you?

  2. good thing you don’t have lever handles like M&D … I say you install a security gate like they have at the mall at the bottom of your stairs… or start sleeping with ear plugs…

  3. PS: leave your bedrom door open and – if they bother you while you sleep, just throw them from where they’re bothering you. . . ifit’s your face they’re on, pick them up and toss them off the bed. If it’s your window sill, toss them from the room.

    …Don’t throw them, just give ’em the sensation of being sent away from what you don’t like.

    Of course, it’ll take time but… really, you won’t have to lock ’em out anymore.

    Confessions:
    1. I place a fleece throw at the corner of my queen size bed and my cat claimed it for his own with no prodding.
    2.My cat’s awesome and will one day be president.
    3. He still get’s on my window still and on my face at times but now I clap my hands if he wakes me and he just leaves the room. (his being on the window sill means the roll-down bamboo blinds let in the light of the neighbors ever-on fKing security light).
    3a. I have never hit or otherwise given my cat reason to “fear” me.
    3b. Of course, I’ve got a loud bark and I used it early on since I don’t yell normally. It got my later points across without having to actually get physical with the cat or associate the scare with me.
    3c. I’m not insinuating I know anything and you don’t. …I’m so tired.
    3d. but he does rock. over chicago. over virginia – my cat rocks. …spoiled punk that he is.

  4. 1. an adult w/o at least a queen-size bed has got something going on that needs fixin’.

    2. #3 is pretty screwed up. Won’t make corrections, it’s late.

    3. #3b – I don’t actually bark. It’s more of a stern tone. It’s all in the tone, really. (Yes, you, I’ve said it; there’s no need to explain further.)

  5. I experienced this same ordeal with my younger one, Tank, and I think you’re right about the separation anxiety thing, because he is practically attached to my hip at home (unlike Scout who is moody and likes to chew my things).

    We used to shut them out of the bedroom and he’d do the running-at-the-door thing, he’d paw at it, jump and fiddle with the door handle (they’re the ADA-compliant door handles), but he never did get the door open.

    I wish I could say they eventually stop, but I don’t know that for a fact — we gave up and just started leaving the bedroom door open at night.

  6. booby trap the door handle somehow.

    i say this because the way to get dogs to stop digging is to bury chicken wire–it won’t hurt them, but OH MAN they never forget.

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