u/RedditUser93671

Sort of a longish story, so I apologize in advance. My cat is 10 years old but I’ve only had her in my house for 4 months and the last few night have been a tough.

Basically my husband brought a cat home when he was in high school and it has been living with his parents for the last 10 years. As of January, his parents are retired and have decided to winter in Florida. During this time, we took the cat to our house since they were going to be gone for 3 months. My husband and I got really attached to having her, and since she was *technically* my husband’s, his parents were more than happy to allow us to keep her full time. Especially since they intend on traveling a lot more in the future and it’s easier if she is not being carted back and forth. She has been an angel this entire time. No issues whatsoever until this week.

Now for the recent problem. Fast forward to last week, my mom went on vacation for a week, and we were dog sitting for her. My husband and I have 2 dogs with whom the cat gets along great with. shes always been around dogs and never had a problem. My mom’s dog… not so much. He had never been around a cat and wasn’t very fond of her. We were only watching him for 4 days, and during this time the cat spent most of the time hiding upstairs in our room since my mom’s dog didn’t go upstairs. Previous to this, she never cared to be in our room and always slept downstairs on the couch. We allowed her to stay in our room for those 4 nights because she was more comfortable and we figured it would be temporary until my mom’s dog went back home.

Now, my mom’s dog is back home and everything is back to normal except for the cat’s sleeping habits. She only wants to sleep in our room now, but the problem is she is extremely disruptive because she wants to sleep on top of me. We decided for my own sanity and restful sleep, she needs to go back to sleeping in the living room where she had been for the last 4 months without issue. Except she doesn’t want to sleep there anymore, she wants to be in the bedroom, on top of me. For the last 4 nights, she spends her time outside of the bedroom door scratching and meowing. It’s driving me absolutely crazy. This will go on until all hours of the night when I finally have had enough. Then I’ll go out, pick her up, and bring her down to my basement where she will be locked for the remainder of the night. The basement is where her food, water, and litter box are. How long will this go on until she finally learns that she isn’t going to be allowed back in the room? And are there any suggestions on faster/more effective ways of teaching her that she isn’t going to be allowed in by scratching and meowing? We aren’t giving in to letting her in the room, but she’s ruining the door frame from scratching, and I haven’t had a restful night of sleep in days. Really could use help on curbing this behavior