My kitty and Gizmo, what to do, what to do ? Need help bad !!!!
 

So this last week my kitty Lucy has decided to start pulling Gizmo's potty pads out of the holders, and I can't figure out how to make her stop !!!!! She also has now taken up the habit of sitting on the coffee table growling and hissing, which makes Gizmo bark because he gets frustrated. I think she's doing the growling and hissing so he barks, to make my other 2 kitties afraid to come down stairs, because they are more skittish than her. All my cats were born feral, and I bottle fed them all. They are all different ages but the other 2, Sadie and Bruiser I did not get and start bottle feeding till around 3 weeks each. Sadie is the most afraid of the barking, she is 9 years old, and bruiser tries to talk to Gizmo, but from the stairs where he feels safe because Gizmo now barks and chases them both, I think due to how frustrated Lucy has made him. She will sit on anything that is just out of reach of Gizmo, swing here tail back and forth in front of his face, while she growls and hisses, then will wap him on the head when he jumps up, which leads to unbearable barking. With this, I think she's controlling him to where he does not make friends with the other cats, out of jealousy :-) she's the oldest out of my three cats at 10 years old. She's super smart, she rides in the car, walks on a leash, goes to the dog park on leash, and loves going everywhere with us. She's one smart cat, and I know, she knows what she's doing because its working lol.

The other thing with removing the potty pads from the holder is really a big issue, as I had Gizmo going potty perfect, until this last week and she, meaning Lucy the cat, decided to start removing the pads from the holders, causing Gizmo to have 3 accidents in a row, because he had no pads in any of his potty pad holders. I've kept Gizmo on the first floor of my house so far because its all hard floors, and the upstairs is all carpeted. I wanted to have him potty trained well before I let him upstairs because of the carpet. He was doing amazing and had not had an accident in over a month. Well this changed now that Lucy keeps pulling the pads out of the holders, as I said, he's had 3 accidents in the last 2 days after going a month without not 1 accident.

Has anyone ever had a cat that either teases your yorkie or a cat that pulls out the pads from the potty pad holders? I'm hoping I am not the only one that has a cat that knows how to manipulate so badly lol. Right now what I'm doing with the barking, and cat teasing to encourage it, is separating them, making the cat go to my bedroom and putting Gizmo in his xpen.

For the kitty removing the potty pads from the holders, I'm at a complete loss how to stop this, and hope once I do, I can get Gizmo trained back completely to no accidents like he was doing.

I never thought I would be dealing with a cat and puppy war lol. I also think it has to do with Gizmo now being able to go for walks, now that all his vaccines have been completed. I think Lucy the kitty is jealous because she used to be the only one that got to go for walks on the leash, and now she sees Gizmo going out. Who would have thought I would be dealing with this jealousy issue. It's like the war of the roses around here, but between a cat and a puppy :-) I am so stressed out on how to fix these 2 issues.

Also on the spots on my travertine stone kitchen floor where gizmo has had accidents in the last 2 days, I have sprayed a pet Oder removal spray. I'm thinking of trying to squirt them with a squirt bottle, but the cat actually takes baths with me, so not so sure it will work on her, as she likes water, but maybe it will work on Gizmos barking.

Not sure how to get Gizmo to stop trying to go potty on the floor now that he has done it. Surprisingly he never has in the whole time I've had him, due o my relentless training with him. He does go when outside on walks, but nights would be the problem, as he's still so young and I also live in a highly populated area, where its really not safe for me to walk at night, even though we live in a nice neighborhood, we still get people from other areas that are not so nice because we live right at the beach.

If you got through this whole thing, thank you so much for taking the time to read my long winded frustrated post xoxo

Please tell me I'm not the only one here who has a cat that thins its human and creating chaos lol. HELP !!!!!!

Thanks in advance for any and all ideas, I can use all I can get.

Dang, I feel your pain. Unfortunately, I don't have any advice. I couldn't potty pad train Huey because HE would drag them everywhere & shred them. He didn't need a kitty helper. He is also an only dog, so no jealousy issues. It does sound like you have a dominant cat problem and I never had too much luck with training cats. I'm sure someone here will have some good suggestions for you. Good luck!

At first when I got Gizmo, he did go through the pad shredding phase, thankfully he stopped, but now Lucy is making him crazy lol

Are you home during the day? Sounds like you might have to retrain Gizmo to potty outdoors. Maybe you can put a pad out now and then when you think its time for him to go so he can keep that training in case he has to be left.

I don't know how often pad trained dogs go, but Maggie will go when she gets up and is quite fine for at least 6 hours. She goes ALL night, that is often from 9pm until 11am without having to go. She is 10 pounds though, and I think the bigger they are the longer they can hold. Not sure though because you'd think if they are smaller they just drink proportionately less.

Hopefully someone can let you know if it's possible to retrain to go outside. Lots of treats and happiness for a job well done. However, it will require more training of you as well.

Ok, this won't help with kitty aggression, but it might be a good alternative to the pee pads. I originally bought 2 of these for Huey, but he pulled the grass mat off and drug it through the house & shredded the grass, just like he did pee pads. I think it is too heavy for Gizmo or even a cat to drag, maybe? I had the real "potty patch" but looking at Amazon, there are some lower cost alternatives to try out. Our potty patch is now out on the deck and Huey uses it out there. He finally quit dragging the grass around.
Amazon.com: Potty Patch - As Seen on TV, Small,... Amazon.com: PAW Puppy Potty Trainer, The Indoor... Amazon.com: PetZoom Pet Park Indoor Pet Potty,...

Gizmo is only 4 months old and has food and water on demand. He goes potty quite often, probably every hour to an hour and a half. He does go outside when we go for walks, but I would be walking all day :-) I'm a partial paraplegic so am limited in the amount of walks I can go on. He weighs 3 lbs 8 Ozs so he's pretty small but eats and drinks a ton.

I wish I even had a little yard but unfortunately beach living here, there are no yards, as its all town homes , very close together.

I know overnight, he goes a good 3 or 4 times a night on his pad in his xpen, so he does still need his pads at this age and time. I'm glad to know that once he gets bigger and more grown up, he will be able to hold it at night, that will definitely make it much easier when he's an adult. :-)

Thank you for the advice :-)

How do you clean the grass? I had thought of these as well, my main 2 concerns were how I would clean the grass, and the second was worrying about my cats actually trying to use this instead of their litter box :-) Its amazing because as long as Gizmo does not have Lucy the cat sabotaging him, he's great and never misses. He has been easy to train but unfortunately because of Lucy, I have to retrain him all his commands like once a week. She will hide in doorways where we can't see her, and when we play fetch she will divert his attention to her.

I was just thinking last night, and all this chaos started to get really bad once Gizmo was able to start going for walks on a leash. Lucy is a cat but thinks she is a dog lol, and she also walks on a leash, although she can't walk as fast anymore because she's getting older, she also just goes a small distance. I'm thinking its related to being jealous of Gizmo now going outside for walks. She does still run around the living room and kitchen playing with Gizmo, but she also loves to tease him. That's the worst problem, is the teasing. She's like the bully on the playground lately lol.

I'm going to look into the grass mats again. Thanks for the advice.

The grass mats are removeable and each brand has instructions on how to clean it, but for the potty patch, a few days a week I would take the mat out & put it on the deck and pour hot soapy water over it, then clean water, then let it dry. If you buy more than one mat, it makes this easier. Winter is more difficult as they don't want to dry as well, but if you maybe have an enclosed garage?
Make sure you don't clean it with anything that could be toxic (well, DUH) :rolleyes: I love Dawn dish soap.

In is my opinion that cats can be the biggest jerks. My cat torments Brandi just because she knows she can. She will sit at the top of the stairs when she know Brandi just wants to go upstairs to go to bed. If Brandi tries to get past the mean kitty, the kitty will give Brandi little love taps and then Brandi runs back downstairs to tell me that the cat won't let her upstairs.

As for the potty pads, I had that problem too. I no longer use the holder and I've switched to washable pads. My cat uses the potty pads to urinate as well and this probably won't change. The cat now at least can't shred the disposable ones and all I have to do is just straighten it out now.

I have feral cats as well. They don't like visitors or loud noises. When Gracie was still pretty young I found a littler of young kittens in the woods. The mom was feral so I brought the kittens inside and the mom followed me. She wouldn't come in at first but hung at the door. I finally got her inside and she finished raising the kits in my home. It took a lot of patience working with the mom but it all worked out. Anyway, the mom saw Gracie as a threat to her kittens and would chase her if she caught her near them. She chased Gracie under the recliner one time and I had to save her from certain injury! Gracie learned not to mess with Mother Cat!

Gracie had already been with a different littler of kittens when I first brought her home and she had become accustomed to bossing them around and herding them. Their mom was much more laid back. But gracie saw the kittens as play mates and she is still good friends with the ones I kept.

It sounds like your cat is trying to establish her position in the home. She wants Gizmo to know that she rules. They may eventually become friends but right now it is a battle of wills.

Do you have the kind of frame for your pee pads that locks down tightly over the pads? Our kittens did sometimes shred a pad or two but I never had one that enjoyed ripping them out of the frame. Cats are able to be trained. If you can't find any other way then get yourself a good long range squirt bottle that you can spray the cat with when she gets near the pad. You will have to keep a close watch for a few days but once she gets it a few times she will abandon the game.

There is a thread here on YT about teaching your dog not to bark. I understand that the cat is trying to torment Gizmo but he has to learn to listen to you when you say "no more!" When Gracie was young I would keep a rolled up newspaper near by at all times. With kittens around she had lots of opportunity to get excited and start barking up a storm. I would tell her "NO MORE!" and if she did not listen I would bang that paper on my hand or a near by table. It got her attention and she would stop. It may take a bit of repetition until he learns you mean business but he will learn if you are consistent.

When the cat learns that Gizmo has begun to just cool his jets around her the fun will be over and she will move on to something else. Never a dull moment!:)

I'd put aluminum foil over the edges of the potty pad holder...kitties do not care much for foil...and I sometimes put a sheet of it over stuff on kitchen counters, etc., I do not want kitties to mess with. There are mostly all ferals that are domesticated, too. I had 1 kitty that continued to 'sharpen his claws' on a wooden door, regardless what I did INCLUDING the foil, but most run for the hills if they hear foil tinkle-y-noises.

I'd also put a few pennies in a clean, empty can and tape the lid back on. When the shenanigans start, I'd rattle my can. I have a can opener that cuts through the seam so there are no sharp edges and the lid fits back on the can like it's not been cut off. I put 4 pennies in the can, and tape the lid back on with wide masking tape. I have several of these cans, am making more, and have made them to give away. Ahhh...gotta love the silence! :D

I got a squirt bottle yesterday :-) I know it won't work on Lucy because she actually takes baths with me lol, but it did work for Gizmo barking at her last night. So far yesterday I just yelled at Lucy every time she went near the pad, and she walked away. Today is hopefully not going to be harder, because I have to leave for a while to go to a dr appt., but if all else fails I'm going to contact Jackson fron that show my cat from he**, I get he's never had a case like this lol.

My aim as far as Lucy and Gizmo, I'm just going to work on training Gizmo to ignore her teasing , and with Lucy and the potty pads, well that might take more work, as Lucy is older and set in her ways. I think I figured out that, she started removing the potty pads once Gizmo was allowed to go out for walks, I think she's jealous. And yes she's pulling them out of the whole pad holders. I even bought this thick foam tape to put around the edges of the frame to hold them down tighter, but she still gets them out :-( the pad issue is going to be the harder issue to resolve. The teasing I think, I can train Gizmo to ignore. I just need to figure out the potty pad situation mostly. Wish me luck :-)

Squirt bottles did not work for me. The cats learned to 'fear' the bottle, and were 'traumatized' by the sight of the bottle. Plus, the water got stuff wet, and when they were wet, they'd run through the house shaking the water off them. ;)

Yea my cat actually likes being squirted, and apparently so does Gizmo, I found that out this morning lol. Squirt bottle = Complete Fail lol. Gizmo also gets super hyper and excited by loud noise and gets the zoomies so making any loud noise does not work either. If anything it just scares my other 2 more skittish kitties :-( I'm bound and determined to find something that works though haha, I'm not going to let them win hehehehe. ;-)

:rolleyes::D You might try the foil and penny ("clatter") can. See my other, previous post. I feel your pain...Brody herds cats, Mia loves on them til they scream, drowning in Yorkie spit, 'get away' in kitty language, and Bria tries so hard to love on her chosen kitty, pouncing against the cabinet doors, etc., that kitty gets all freaked out...usually ends up scratching me when I rescue her! :D

No, it's not going to be easy but I can tell you that both cats and dogs will respond to consistent training. When Gracie was a pup and we had those litters of kittens I thought it would never end. Between learning to deal with her terrier disposition with the added plus of the distraction of the kittens and Mother Cat things were kind of wild around here. Hang in there. You have to let them know that you are the boss and you really mean it. I used to try not to laugh when Gracie would give me that look when I was trying to be the disciplinarian. Sometimes it's hard to be the boss when they are just so darn cute!

Gizmo is actually pretty good other than responding to Lucy's taunting by barking at her. Lucy the cat is the major issue haha. I hand raised her from 2 days old, and I think because of that for 10 years she has never actually seen herself as a cat. I think that's the major problem here. She is not like an ordinary cat, she rides in the car, walks on a leash, when she could walk further she loved going to the dog park :-) she also jumps in my bath with me and wants to be involved in everything. What is really funny, is I have raised six litters of feral kittens and she's always been the mom to the babies, but with the full grown cats, she does not interact with them at all, she totally ignores them, like she is not one of them.

When I first got Gizmo she was great at being nice to him and running around playing with him. Once one of the other cats, bruiser, started showing interest in getting to know Gizmo, she stopped it by teaching Gizmo how to bark by taunting him, which scares bruiser to death. I think she thinks Gizmo is her puppy, even over us lol. It's like she's trying to overturn my training of Gizmo, with her own training of him. Gizmo was doing awesome, and still is when she's not around :-) he does know how to play fetch, sit and stay, use his potty pads (as long as Lucy has not stolen them from the holders). But it's like I have to keep retraining Gizmo because she gets in the middle and diverts his attention, so I have to chase Lucy upstairs to stop her :-) I can say, if you google, you won't find much info on how to teach your cat, that the puppy is not hers :-) I really can't use anything that makes loud noise, as Lucy is not afraid of anything, she will even go after the biggest dog at the dog park fearlessly, the noise also gives Gizmo the zoomies and makes him even more excited and playful, and loud. While on the other hand it scares the other 2 cats to death, to where they will only come down stairs to go potty in their box and eat, otherwise those 2 stay upstairs.

As I write this, Gizmo is sitting politely in his pen, with a toy in his mouth waiting for me to let him out, as I just got home from the doctors. Lucy is also waiting for me to let him out sitting right at the bottom of the stairs haha. The good news is I tested Lucy while I went to the drs, by leaving a potty pad out on a holder, that Gizmo had went potty on, and I came home and it was still in its holder. Another funny thing is this morning when I squirted Gizmo with the water bottle, Lucy was the one o leave him lone, almost like she did not want her puppy to get in trouble? Very strange lol. Hopefully Lucy will be good if I show her the water bottle and she won't want her puppy sprayed again lol. You really would need to meet Lucy o now what I mean when I say she is not a normal cat haha. Hopefully things get better, they seem to be right this minutes:-)

Thanks so much everybody for the help :-)

Sounds like they are quite the pair. Probably just telling her "no" or moving her away when she gets near the pads will eventually lead her to leave them alone. Cats have their own way of handling things. An exceptionally smart cat is always looking for ways to keep from being bored. Sounds like Gizmo is her project. Maybe she does resent you taking him for walks. Like you took her baby away and she didn't like it. She seems to have that motherly instinct.
Our Mother Cat (her name because she had so many litters out in the woods before we finally tamed her and made her a house cat) had a powerful mothering instinct. She does not identify with other cats and is quite a loner now that she is spayed. She, however, has never liked Gracie since she has that strong feral instinct. Gracie plays with the other cats but steers clear of Mother cat.

I told my husband it's like watching one of those cartoons, where the cat is always sabotaging the dog lol. So far so good today, after I sprayed Gizmo for barking this morning, while Lucy was growling, hissing and egging him on, Lucy has been being nicer and the potty pad is still in the holder. It's almost like Lucy is saying "hey don't punish my puppy, I'm the only one allowed to do that" haha. Everything is nice and quiet right now and they are both being good, I just hope it stays this way :-)

It is really different with feral raised kitties than domestics. Even if you get them early like I did with Lucy at 2 days old, they always have a bit of that wildness in their genes or something. My other 2, Sadie and Bruiser still seem to have the skittish thing going on like ferals, they will not come out when their are strangers or even people they have met are in the house, yet they let my grand babies carry them all over when we have sleepovers. Lucy has a thing where she has to go for Walks outside with us everyday and is totally opposite by the fact she fears nothing. I remember when Lucy was little, she stood out from the other kitties because she was so smart and fearless, that's what made me keep her :-) now I wish she at least feared my reprimands haha, but she doesn't, that's why it was so funny that she behaved when Gizmo got sprayed by the water bottle, like she was offended that I reprimanded her puppy, even though she did not respond at all to herself being reprimanded. I guess the way to go with Lucy, is not reprimanding her, but reprimand the puppy so she behaves, wanting to keep her puppy out of trouble lol.

I found out that cats HATE the smell of lemon so when our cat started using pad and spraying on the wall I put lemon juice all around the edge of the pad. That stopped it. But when the pas was replaced she went right back to the same old thing. You may want to try it for a while and see if it works for you. I thought about useing Lemon Pledge around the edges too. Something that smells like lemon anyway.

Many of the feral 'kittens' I got were 4-8 months minimum, and cats were into adulthood. They 'can' be pretty skittish when a feral mom has raised them feral BEFORE you get hold of them...that's for sure. :D