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So Violet is an indoor cat (we live in an apartment, she's safer indoors, and besides, it's winter and her tummy is still bald from her spay) but I do take her on walks on the leash around the halls of my apartment building.

Well, apparently, she's decided that our entire floor is her territory, and so lately she's taken to sitting at the door crying loudly and trying to sneak out every time the door is open. The sneaking I can live with, but the crying is becoming a bit much, and I'm not doing a very good job at fixing the behaviour.

Now, I've been taking her on walks or letting her run in the hall when she's been good (I'm really trying not to respond to the crying in any way that encourages it), I've been trying to distract her with toys when she gets intent on the door and I've been telling her "no" and trying to do a bit of spray bottle training.

It's not doing much good though. She knows she's not supposed to be sitting at the door crying, so if she sees you get up she'll run away until she knows you don't have the spray bottle. Distraction with toys works as a temporary measure, but I can't sit and play with her for hours every night. Letting her out and taking her on walks placates her for a bit, but she starts up again after not too long.

Any ideas? It's really awful listening to her cry like she's being murdered, and it's very loud.

I don't think there's a great deal you can do. Almost two years later, Oreo still does stuff she knows she's not supposed to and runs when she sees you get up.

All of our cats have gone through phases where they try to run out the door every time it's open. They tend to outgrow it after a little bit. I'm sure yours will too, and probably grow out of the crying as well.

As long as one of your kittens aren't an evil genius. Esper used to wait until Mercury would try to run out the door before he would. Of course, he waited until we stooped to pick up Mercury before running around the corner and bolting for the open door.

Just hope they don't double team you like that. xD

my cat, smokey is a persistant whiner. he cries for no reason (other than to get my attention when i'm busy). giving him attention only teaches him the whining works...

when he starts i tell him firmly to stop and if that doesn't work i show him the spray bottle... and if it comes down to it i squirt him. it works well but it took a while, training cats isn't easy.

Well, getting a second kitty seems to have provided at least a temporary distraction.

The thing that gets me about this is that she's been pretty easy to train in other regards - she knows her name and frequently comes when called; she'll walk on a leash; she knows which surfaces she's allowed on and which ones she's not (she occasionally ignores the rules but is generally pretty good); she knows she's allowed to drink and eat out of things on the floor but not on the table or couch; she knows that she's allowed to scratch her furniture and nothing else; and she plays fetch. So she generally takes well to training. She's just been so difficult with this... maybe cause there's no real substitute for going outside and she really wants to go out there.