As a cat owner, I feel it’s important for me to share issues and problems I experience with my own cats with those of you who follow us. Not only may sharing our troubles help you, but your stories and experiences may also help us! Over the holidays we started experiencing some behavioral issues with Oreo. He began this nightly ritual of waking me up at all hours of the night for food. Sometimes beginning as early as midnight and lasting throughout the night until the next morning. Oreo’s ritual consists of what I call “ringing the dinner bell”, which in plain terms is basically scratching on objects close by, like my bedside table, or the base of the bed itself. After the scratching, he proceeds to jump on my head to get me up. It got so bad that I wound up exhausted throughout most of the holidays and still need to catch up on sleep. As a result of having little to no sleep I became impatient, my creativity suffered and I also wound up with the flu.

I tried everything to make the routine stop. Things like closing the bedroom door may have kept Oreo from jumping on my head, but in return he’d make more noise outside the closed door that it would keep my husband up as well. Inevitably, I just wound up getting up each time and gave in to feeding Oreo in the middle of the night. After a couple weeks of this, and running on little to no sleep, I was at a complete loss and so I decided to contact Dr. Marci Koski, a trained cat behaviorist and owner of Feline Behavior Solutions. Marci took an appointment with me over the phone to discuss the issue and see what options I had. After a long conversation, she helped me to better understand the needs of my cat. She offered me advice and tools to help better the situation. It’s only been a couple of days since we spoke, but I already see changes in Oreo by using the knowledge she gave me.

I want to thank Dr. Marci Koski for taking the time to speak with me and help Oreo and I to get through this problem. I know with time, things will be much better and I will once again be able to sleep though the night.

If anyone is looking for some advice for any behavioral problems you are experiencing with your cat(s), I suggest you contact Dr. Marci Koski. She is warm, attentive and really cares about the well-being of the cat as well as the owner.

**Note from Marci – Oreo was my first “celebricat” client! You can find out more about Oreo and his love for the bacons at his website and on Facebook, as well as many other social media sites!