I think my cat is possessed.

This...
...is Midget.

She looks sweet, innocent, and unassuming, but behind those little bug eyes is a brain that exists solely to drive me mad.

Every night, at least two or three times at random intervals, she leaps out of her bed (or off my bed, depending on where she's decided to sleep) and thunders through the house like a miniature herd of elephants. For something so small, she can make a lot of noise.

And speaking of the noise she makes, it's not the running through the house that drives me crazy. It's when she stops. Usually someplace downstairs, sometimes out in the hall, she'll stop.

And.

She.

HOWLS.

Like, you would swear someone is chainsawing her legs off or chewing on her spleen. The sounds that come out of this animal are unreal. Then one of us will call her, she'll come tearing back upstairs, get back in bed, and go to sleep.

We joke that she gets lost and freaks out, but who knows? It's not because of the new house, because she did this in our apartment on Okinawa (how she managed to do so without crashing through a wall is beyond me -- that apartment was the size of a postage stamp) and our house in Virginia. She has food and water. The other cat isn't disturbed or upset. It's not an earthquake (she's actually even MORE batshit when there's an earthquake coming, but those were a little more common in Japan than Nebraska anyway). We really have no idea why she does it.

Anyone else have a cat that does this? Any possible solutions besides stuffing a sock in her mouth and making her sleep in the garage? (No, I wouldn't do that...it's just really tempting sometimes at 3 in the morning)

Snowstorm said:

I had read a LONG time ago (can't even recall where I read it) to keep your cat awake more during the day so she'll be sleepier at night. As I said that was a long time ago and techniques for animal behavior may have changed.

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We've tried that. We try to play with her before bed until she collapses. Doesn't work. >.<

Or you could get a second cat so they can race each other and you can listen to a duet.

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Our second cat just looks at her like she's nuts. lol (Base housing won't let us have a third cat, so unless The Slug starts romping around with her, we're limited to one insane cat hehehe)

alleycat said:

I resent that.

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She does have a point, though. I mean, cats are, by nature, evil. That's why I like them.

I just wish mine would let me sleep...

alleycat said:

Cats are famous for "zooming". Mine will sometimes go from one end to the house to the other and back again, and over anything that gets in her way (for example, me).

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Yeah no kidding. It's not the zooming that bothers me -- Midget's hilarious in racecar mode -- it's the screaming when she stops. Seriously, you would think she was being disemboweled with a stapler.

alleycat said:

Sounds like a cat in heat.

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...she's spayed. That, and it wouldn't happen every night if she was in heat, would it?

C.H. Valentino said:

She's a beautiful cat.

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Thanks!

This vet discovered she had some crystallization in her kidneys and that it was causing her sharp, sudden pain. It was not constant, but when it happened, she'd howl and run and flip and act possessed. Turns out, she needed medication to break up the crystals. The howling stopped after that. I'm not sure if this is what it happening to your baby, but if it's as simple as a solution as my mother's cat was, I know you wouldn't want her to be in pain.

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Hmm, the vet didn't know what to think, but I'll try another one. Thanks for the tip!

I don't know if she's in any kind of pain. I mean, it's zero to howling in seconds, and when I call her, she runs back up to the bedroom, jumps into bed with me, and purrs like nothing happened. So...I don't know. Still worth checking out, though.

kayleamay said:

It seems clear to me that you have been dragging some supernatural entity from continent to continent with you and your cat is simply trying to alert you to its presence.

Or perhaps I just have an overactive imagination.

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Unless the cat IS the supernatural entity...