My wife and I have a 17 year old mixed breed cat called Dave. Despite
his age he's remarkably playful - he will chase a piece of string for at
least 5-10 minutes before getting bored. He'll also still turn up at my
feet with a variety of outdoor wildlife from time to time. He's a great
cat and very well behaved - he eats/drinks well, only ever users his
litter box, only ever scratches his scratching post and so on. I have a
lot of time for him, but I have one problem with him that is driving me
to distraction: his meow. It is so SO loud, and he is so incredibly...
expressive.

He meows all the time, for no apparent reason at all.  His meow is so
loud that when he's in our (finished) basement and I'm in our Attic, I
can hear it as though he's standing next to me. I've seen many people
walking by our house turn and look in at the moment he's been doing it.
One day last year we had a neighbor from across the street turn up at
the front door with food and water because they thought our cat had been
left home alone and was screaming for help. It was so embarrassing.

At the last visit to the vet, he was given a clean bill of health, and
has always been healthy in the past. I thought this behavior might of
been triggered by me moving in 3 years ago with my wife, but she
reliably informs me that he's always been like this. My wife just "tunes
him out".

Over the last year I've tried a variety of tactics to try and at least
reduce the frequency of meowing: I've tried (for around 3 or 4 months each)

1) squirting him with water (he meows from out of range)
2) rattling a coin in a can (he meows from out of sight)
3) throwing screwed up paper at him (he started to fetch them, dog style)

I have resigned myself to appreciating he is just going to meow like
this, but I really want to try and understand it a bit, for his
potential benefit and mine too

1) Is it possible he has some sort of long term problem like arthritis
that the vet hasn't seen

2) Could he be a bit deaf? He is easy to sneak up on.

3) Could he be lonely and/or bored? When my wife and I are home (which
is a lot), he absolutely HAS to be in the same room as us at all times,
and he hardly sleeps at all (unless we do).

4) If we got a friend - say a kitten- is the kitten likely to learn the
loud and constant meowing?

Chris