Safe Speed Forums

"Crepuscular"? I'll have to look that one up. (Sounds like someone addicted to pancakes to me . )

This is dedicated to everyone who’s been woken up at the crack of dawn by their cat!

The truth is, it may not be hunger that drives your cat to rouse you.

It’s because cats are crepuscular – a great word that describes activity that takes place at twilight, i.e. at dawn and dusk.

Prey tends to be active during those hours too, and so cats naturally evolved to take advantage of Mr Mouse’s social hours.

If anyone tells you cats are creatures of the night, that’s not technically true. Cats have superb night vision, but even they can’t see in pitch-black darkness, so cats tend to sleep when it’s dark/night.

So, what can you do if your cat’s crepuscular peak hours don’t coincide with yours?

Goes without saying: don’t allow your cat to share your bed/bedroom. [i.e. do as I say and not as I do, said she who shares her bed with 2 Maine Coons and is slave to their dawn chorus]. And best to shut your cats at night in a room as far away from the bedroom as possible so that you don’t hear them scratching the door in the morning.

If your cats are your bed companions, try getting black-out curtains to shut out the early-morning sun. That might buy you a bit of time [but not much - I have black-out curtains].

Try ear plugs to block out their crepuscular cries. [Works a bit, but not much use when the cat decides to walk on your face, or make bread on your chest]

Try keeping your cat awake during the day, so that it sleeps for longer at night. Apparently, cats sleep up to 16 hours a day!

And I don’t know if it’s true, but a psychic once told me that cats journey in their sleep, i.e. their spirits leave their bodies and go on a kind of astral hike which is why they sleep so much. The same psychic added that cats have the ability to absorb entities – whatever that means.