At the end of March/early April, I adopted a four month old kitten from my local humane society. He'd been in foster care since February, and he'd just been put up for adoption on March 31st when I saw him and adopted him. On Monday, April 2nd, he was fixed, and I was able to bring him home. Since getting him, I've determined that he is a Maine Coon, and he's calmed down alot. He no longer gets upset when in his kennel. He's only in there when I'm at work or at night when I'm in bed, and I let him out as soon as I wake up or get home. The kennel is just until after he's been declawed (please, don't start a lecture against me on this). However, there are still issues where I need help with him.

He seems to have taken on an attitude with me that crops up at times when he's having one of his outbursts. He has a tendency to get into things he's not supposed to, and once I get him out of what he's getting into, he will return to it in a couple minutes with a bit more of an intensity.

Here's a good example of what will happen. At night I'll be in the bathroom washing up at the sink for bed. He'll decide he wants to play in the bathtub. While I don't mind him just being in there, he will attack the shower curtain and shampoo bottles on the shelf, thudding his paws on the sides of the tub with loud bangs and thudding the shampoo bottles around. The problem with that is that he does this around 11PM, and I have neighbors on the other side of the bathroom wall (I live in a townhouse). I'll tell him no (sometimes giving him a quick squirt of water), and he'll jump out of the tub, run out of the bathroom and go down the stairs. If I look down the stairs afterwards to see if I can see him, he'll be on the stairs looking up and crouched down like he's ready to pounce and play. I'll ignore him at that point as he's obviously getting rowdy and overstimulated and go back to what I was doing. After a couple minutes, he'll come back in the bathroom and head straight for the tub, making commotion again. I'll again get him out of the tub, and he goes down onto the stairs to wait. After a couple times of this, he will come running up the stairs, run into the bathroom, and literally dive into the tub.

The other night, I did get him to stop by stepping in his path into the bathroom when I heard him coming up the stairs. He stopped in the hallway and calmed himself, turning his attention to his toys that I'll leave in the hallway for him (normally his toys are in the living room where I usually am with him).

Anyways, I know that, like in the case of the bathtub incidents, when he gets like this he's probably doing it for attention. Either that or he's testing me to see what he can get away with.

Another thing that I've had problems with him on is his getting onto or into things he shouldn't. Shortly after I got him, I noticed his wanting to get up onto tables, get under the recliner, and get into other places that he shouldn't. For the recliner, I took some clear packing tape, made a loop with the sticky side out, and put that on the carpet under the recliner where he was going under it, flattening it so it was level with the carpet. That's worked, and he's pretty much lost interest in going under the recliner since. However, in cases like on my tabletops, I can put the sticky side of the tape onto the table as it would hurt the wood surface. What I was doing was just taking a strip of the tape and laying it sticky side up on the tables where he was getting up on them. That worked for a while. However, he's realized that the tape isn't fixed to anything and now knows how to move the tape out of his way and then get up on the tables. And he knows he's not supposed to get up on them as I'll tell him no, and then when he sees me reaching for the water bottle, he gets down.

The issue I'm having with him and cords/cables is being worked out. I've found that he doesn't like the taste of cayenne pepper, which I've tried on a couple cords. That has worked and kept him from biting on them. I'm also going around and shortening the cords on lamps (sliding them back into the bases) so that there isn't as much exposed cord for him to play with. I'm also going to be removing the safety tags from the power cords as he tends to play with those more than the cords themselves. I'm also going to be getting behind my computer desks and TV/entertainment center and bundle the cables (been wanting to do that anyways) to make them less tempting for him to play with and get tangled in. I've also put up/stored a lot of things that he's been likely to get in or cause problems with for now (ceramics, my Lionel train in the living room, etc.) just to be safe.

I'm also learning his body language as to when he's getting rowdy and more likely to playfully bite when I'm around him, especially if he's on my lap.

Despite the occasional incidents (which have steadily lessened since I brough him home), he's been a real sweetheart. I also think he'll calm more once he's out of the kennel for good. I've also been thinking about getting a second cat in time when I can afford to get a second one.
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Chessie in his favorite spot while I work in the kitchen.

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