I've been lurking here for several months. I'm hoping you have some
suggestions for my nocturnal howler. He's a great animal. He's a
neutered male about 2 years old (neutered at an early age) loving,
playful, affectionate etc. no litter box issues either. He is an indoor
only cat. But he yells all night long and I am at the end of my rope.

I adopted him as a stray cat in February. Since he was microchipped, I
found his owner after he showed up at my door, and I know a little bit
about his story. Poor Spike  (I wanted a tough dog name for such a
loving cat). He has had a tough life. He was adopted out of our local
shelter at about 4 months of age, by a woman who had 4 kids and 3 other
cats. I don't know if any of the other cats were litter mates or not.

She had to move from her apartment and gave him away to a neighbor. He
got lost from the neighbors house and returned to the original owner,
because of his microchip.The priganl owner didn't have the contact info
for the new owner so she kept him.  She was living with her  sister,
about 2 blocks from my house.  The sister  also had a number of
animals, and Spike was just put outside with the rest of the cats. He
was previously an indoor only cat so he wandered off to my house,
wormed his way in and now is a part of the family. He's been in our
house for 8 months now.

At first he was an utter angel. slept on the foot of the bed all night
through. But about 2 months after we got him, he started chirping at 5
am. sometimes he wailed a bit. Thinking he was stressed (he's an
anxious little cat) I bought feliway plug in and feliway spray. We also
started ignoring him completely when he yelled and the behaviour
improved after about 6 days.   Unfortunately we had a 3 week vacation
scheduled around that time that had been planned since before we had
the cat.

We had 2 friends come a live at our place to look after him, but he
kept them awake all night. Now that we are back he's still  at it. it
has been a couple of months.  Typically he vocalizes quite a bit during
the day, but it is the night time that is problematic. He is up in the
windowns "on patrol" most of the day and night. He will start chirping
which escalates to full on howling 3 -4 times a night.  We we have
tried isolating him in another room (yells constantly instead of just
intermittently, ad is really upset at being kept from the people),
keeping him awake all day, (didn't work and no longer practical since
we are both back at work now), yelling no! when he vocalizes, squirting
him with water when he vocalizes etc and ignoring him. no sucess.

He's been to the vet, was checked for urinary problems, and he doesn't
have any,  she doesn't think he could be hyperthyroid since he's less
than 2 years of age. She suggested a short course of Paxil just to
break the behaviour, so we tried 2.5 mg, which sedated him for 24 hours
and greatly depressed his appetite. (I know you guys don't like drugs,
but I haven't slept in a month and I'm going out of my mind). We have
gone to 1.25 mg of Paxil on alternate days, which has not yet worked
but it is too early to tell and we may need to increase the dose.

So what to do? Any of you have any addition suggestions? I'm a lifetime
cat owner, but I'm running out of thoughts.  
I could get him a friend, I think he misses the other cats from his old
house, since when ever he sees the neigbour cat he gets very excited. I
could let him out during the day, but I really don't want to do that.

So?  any ideas?

Sorry this is so long and thanks so much in advance

Sue