I have a 15 year old diabetic male cat. We recently lost his buddy in January of 11 years. I give my 15 year old insulin twice a day and fluids twice a week (just started doing the fluids this last week) He eats and drink fine for his physical condition. Also, acts normal most of the time. The haunting the water dish started about 2-1/2 weeks ago when he was diagnosed with a bladder infection. The meds on that stop on the 29th of this month. There are nights when he'll wake me up every two hours just like a infant, crying and haunting his water dish. (he does drink) He did this behaviour about four to five years ago but his buddy was with us then and he wasn't diabetic at the time. Only been diabetic this past year. The behaviour isn't every single night. He does go for several nights without incident then suddenly starts up again. I can't figure it out. Anyone have any thoughts?
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Haunting water dish
Replies (3)
I am assuming that your cat goes to the vet very regularly considering his age and diabetes. If he hasn't been there in a while, perhaps you should schedule an appointment just to be sure all is under control.
The water dish thing might be a learned behavior - the cat has figured out that if he meows around the water dish at night he gets attention from you. Is the dish empty when you get up or does he really seem to be thirsty for extra water. That's probably the key.
My cat is healthy, but he seems to want his water from a glass on the computer keyboard pull out when I sit down and go on line. I suspect he does it for attention from me.
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Thank you for your response. The water dish is not anymore empty than before this behaviour started. Barring an emergency visit between now and Wednesday the 31st my cat has an appointment on the 31st for a check up on his bladder infection (amoxicillan is the med he's on for that and the RX is over on Monday the 29th)and the behaviour. Being diabetic he does injest more fur than normal due to dry skin and I can't give him anything for the dry skin as they fish oil based and he gets a very loose stool from fish oil based anything. Sounds like you may be right about the attention thing. He does have me all to himself since my other cat passed away at the end of this January. The diabetic cat was the Alpha cat in that relationship. Any thougts on how to break him of this behaviour while still maintaining my sanity and regain my sleep. My pets are my children and I don't have any human children so this nighttime stuff is like that from what I've observed my sisters did when their children were babies. Any thoughts would be helpful I'm sure. Thank you so much again!
Sad to say I don't have any thoughts about dealing with the night time thing. I have finally learned to wake up enough to get up and fill the kitty food dish and go back to bed and sleep after having to deal with my cat's persistance at 4 am.
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