Cats are generally very quiet animals, spending much of the day sleeping. However, some cats exhibit unusual behaviour, with an excess of activity that may be considered pathological. Hyperactivity in cats can depend on age, the animal’s personality, and on a health problem that must be detected in time.
Does your cat also have moments of madness and you don’t understand why it behaves this way? Find out when this over-activity is considered normal and what hyperactivity is in cats, so you can take the correct action when your animal is not feeling well.
What does feline hyperactivity look like?
An over-active cat can exhibit all kinds of nervous behaviours. Running around the house, jumping between furniture, chasing humans and other pets, attracting attention through mewing and hitting, and even compulsive licking.
Most cats tend to display this type of hyperactivity as a measure to alleviate boredom or to release pent-up energy. When pets spend too much time alone in the house, or after a long period of rest, they need to move, and can do so frantically.
It may seem strange to you that your cat goes from a peaceful slumber to suddenly running and jumping all over the house. This is far more common in puppies, but some adult cats do it more or less frequently.
Cat Zoomies
Cat zoomies is when a cat goes crazy for no apparent reason. Suddenly the animal adopts an attack stance, the hair on its back and tail stand up, and it starts to move around, running and jumping.
After a few minutes of mindless running, the cat calms down and goes to rest in its favourite corner. What is wrong with the cat? Don’t worry, it’s normal and happens to most of them, with an episode of this type almost every day until they get older and the zoomies occur less frequently or in a milder manner.
When does hyperactivity in cats become a problem?
As mentioned above, hyperactivity in cats can also be a symptom of stress or anxiety. It is in these cases that it becomes necessary to seek professional help, to detect and treat the problem.
If your cat has a strange daily activity that you can’t identify, the first step is to look for a physical problem or disease. You can do this yourself at home, but if you can’t find the cause, don’t delay going to the vet for a physical examination.
When a cat is usually quiet and suddenly starts displaying more active behaviour, accompanied by other symptoms such as weight loss, lack of appetite, hair loss and so on, it may be due to a serious health problem.
Treating hyperactivity in cats
Cats that are naturally hyperactive, without signs of a physical or mental illness, need to be stimulated more often. Have you been to the vet and been told that your pet is fine? Then what it needs is more playtime so it can release all the pent-up energy in its little body.
There are some guidelines you can follow for treating activity in cats:
- Spend several minutes a day playing with your cat and making it burn energy.
- If your cat spends many hours alone in the house, enrich its environment by providing fun toys.
- The company of another animal in the house can be very stimulating for your cat. Perhaps it’s time to adopt a new family.
- Spraying feline pheromones into the environment can help relax cats.
- In the event of a very serious case of hyperactivity, the use of medication prescribed by your vet may be helpful in some cats.
Hyperactivity in cats is a fairly common behaviour that takes you by surprise when you are not familiar with it. At Sepicat we care about the physical and mental health of all our pets, providing them with a comfortable environment to reduce stress as much as possible.
I live in a rural settlement with firests and outdoor animals. My cat has a cat door. She has vecome extremely hyper vigilant snd any nouse or sudden movement gets her going. There are akso neughbirhoid cats that freqyently enter my backyard. How do I calm her down? Would keeping her at home for a while do the job? She has scratched.ne several times in play ir irritation- I can not allow this…
Any distractions could work, try playing with her more ofter and changing her toys, that could be useful.
we have 17 months old Maine Coon Cat who appears to be hyperactive and sometime acts like crazy for no apparent reason (like runs around furniture, try to clime up wooden post and starts to howel when he stops running like crazy)
He is also unfriendly when we try to pet him and tries to nip me with his teeth or scratch me.
He also scratches furniture and we call him “a distroyer”
When he wants, he can be very loving and buts my face with his. He is very beautiful cat. We let him go outside but now that we have snow on the ground, cold temperature and more predatory animals nearby, we keep him inside.
How do we help this guy to calm down, be friendlier and protect our floors and furniture
If he is scratching, you can try buying a cat scratcher and placing it very near the furniture that you cat usually destroys. At the same time cover that furniture so your pet is forced to use his new toy.
Part of their instinct is to scratch, this means that he can be lovely and friendly but still have this bad habit. Learn more about this here, https://sepicat.com/how-to-prevent-your-cats-bad-habits/
My cat had 6 kittens when she was 6 months old. She’s always been a little hyper, but she settled down and was a good mommy. When they all grew old enough, I had the kittens and mommy spayed. I thought this would calm her down. Nope. She’s wilder than ever. Runs constantly, jumps, climbs and just looks for things to get into. What can I do?
This could be due to the hormonal changes in her body, be patient, she will surely go back to normal behavior once she regulates. You could try buying new toys that are more dynamic, in this way she will discharge her energy and stay calmer throughout the day.