Just a few days ago someone asked me, “What’s wrong with my elderly cat? She walks around crying all night.” Well, I’d just read something on this topic and relayed what I learned to this cat owner. I told her, it could be that she’s in pain, that she’s confused, she wants company, she’s hungry or any number of things. When a cat changes her behavior, there is a reason and it’s up to us, as their caretakers, to figure it out.
Of course, this woman wanted a diagnosis and an immediate solution. But as those of us 
who’ve been around cats for a long time know, it doesn’t work that way. They say cats are mysterious creatures and boy is that true. There seem to be three periods in a cat’s life when she can develop a habit or maybe an unexplained behavior problem. Kittenhood (she might come with an idiosyncrasy or trait), as she ages (senility or a physical problem can develop), or a behavior or attitude can come about due to a situation (something frightened her—caused her to become introverted or maybe aggressive).
Now your cat isn’t going to tell you what causes her to stay up all night crying, why she pees on every throw rug in the house, eats ribbon, or bites, for example. Ask an expert, any expert why your cat does these things and what you can do about it and they will give you a list of possible reasons and solutions. So having a cat in your life, for some, requires more of you than just taking care of her everyday needs. Sometimes you’ll have to become a super investigator in order to discover the answers you need in order to help your cat, to get more sleep, to protect yourself from cat bites, etc. Figuring out what the heck’s wrong with your cat may take trouble-shooting beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. Then comes experimentation and still you may never crack the case of the cat who cries in the night or bites when you least expect it.
Here are a couple of sites you may find interesting. This one helps you understand why cats bite and what to do about it. http://www.cathealth.com/aggression/what-to-do-about-cats-that-bite
Here, you’ll get help with petting-induced aggression in your cat. http://www.cathealth.com/aggression/petting-induced-aggression-in-cats
Do you want to understand your cat better? It could take a lifetime of study. Then when you adopt again, the new cat may come with very different kinds of characteristics which will require another ten or twenty years of study. Yes, cats are mysterious creatures and we may never quite understand them. Have you ever thought that maybe that’s the way they want it?
