posted 04-18-2003 03:29 PM            

I was hoping that someone could give me some advice. I have a 10 month old, neutered male Siamese cat. He is a truly wonderful cat but too smart for his own good.

Saevel, the cat's name, enjoys waking up early. I usually get up at 6:30 am during the week but Saevel seems to think that this is not good enough and attempts to wake me up at 4:30 or 5:00.

He is quite good at it. In the apartment we also have a small dog that sleeps in the kitchen. Saevel will meow near her until she wakes up. Once she wakes up, she needs to go for a walk to use the bathroom. So, I really have no choice but to get up and take her outside. Once we are finished if I attempt to go back to sleep he will meow next to my fiance and wake him up and prevent me from going back to sleep.

We have tried everything that we can think of to stop him from doing this. We keep a spray bottle of water next to the bed and my fiance has even put his head under the tap on a few occasions. He doesn't like the water but it doesn't make him stop. He'll meow again 2 minutes later. I have tried blowing on his face but this also did not work. I even tried to have him join us in bed and pet/play with him. He is happy with that for about 5 minutes then he jumps down and begins to cry again.

Sadly, I have resigned myself to just waking up early on weekdays and weekends (no breaks from this guy).

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do? When we buy a house we plan to get a basement and I think that I will put him down there when he is doing this. But this is a few years away....