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My sister has 2 cats and one is deaf.

Every time the other one wants our attention (mostly when she wants to get out or she's bored), she meows constantly. It's not loud, just a little annoying.

But the deaf cat screams, literally. It's really load and disturbing. It drives me and others CRAZY--not kidding, I get evil thoughts. (I don't think she screamed the first year.)

I looked up her behavior on Google; most sites said the best thing is to ignore them until they quit the habit. The problem is my family, they won't listen. Every time she starts screaming, somebody pets her or gives her a little push so she will shut up, but she starts again after couple minutes. The other day this went on for 5 hours.

Question: What can I do besides ignoring her to get her to quit screaming every time she wants something? is there a training trick or something?

Edit:

  1. This cat is about 2 years old, she was deaf from the beginning and we take her to a vet every month.

  2. She started screaming about 4 or 6 months ago.

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1 Answer 1

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She's deaf, and doesn't realize that her 'voice' is excessively loud. She probably screamed a few times just by chance because she couldn't hear herself, and then by understandably rushing to do whatever seemed to make the annoying noise stop, your family has inadvertently taught her "the more and louder I do this, the faster I get what I want!"

In general, punishment doesn't work very well when it comes to training cats, and since she can't hear verbal instructions and reprimand, your only really good option if this is a pure training/behavior issue is to totally ignore her when she's loud, and fuss over and reward her with attention, petting, maybe even treats, when she is quiet or using appropriate volume. Be aware that she might get worse before she gets better, as some cats will just escalate and escalate, ramping up the behavior that 'worked before' for some time before they actually realize that it's not working anymore and trying harder won't help. Once they hit this point of realization things should start to get better.

Since this is a big problem at night and increased after she moved to a new home, it might not just be a behavior thing. She could be experiencing some stress or disorientation and attempting to summon help or reassurance. Nightlights throughout the house and Feliway hormone plugins could help with this, as could an intense and energetic playtime and then a feeding right before bed, to get her on a better sleep cycle where she's more likely to be quiet and grooming or resting when the humans want to sleep.

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