What do you do with a drunken kitty?

On Friday our older (7.5 yrs) cat did something to create a slight medical concern. Slight enough to wait for a visit to the vet on Monday, but enough to want to check it out with the vet. This cat is a Javanese which means he is similar to a Siamese in coloring and body shape. The major difference is longer fur with no undercoat, unlike most longer haired cats. Most importantly he has the VOICE. This cat is a talker, he chats constantly, telling us what he's doing, what he's going to do next, how he feels about EVERYTHING!

This is very cute with some exceptions. The big one is when he wakes us up at an Od-awful hour of the morning because he is so excited that it's morning and MUST share his excitement with us. He cannot be quieted - no amount of snuggling will convince him that we really need him to hush and go back to sleep. This is annoying on a weekday, but heinous on a weekend!

Don't get me wrong, we love this cat: he is a cuddly snugglebug, he gives "kisses" on command, and has several other good things going for him, but this is not cool. This is even less cool than his habit of yakking on the oriental rugs (maybe he doesn't like our taste?). My DH has sleep issues already from a stressful job and low-grade narcolepsy (He does not get enough of the restful stage of sleep, instead he has a lot of dreams. Dreams do not allow your brain to rest and recover from the day so you can wake up refreshed in the morning.) and the cat has not been helping.

We have tried several non-medical options to deal with this animal, none of which have been satisfactory. His voice carries throughout our house, no matter where we put him for the night. Based on the sleep issues above, waiting it out and ignoring him is not an option. Since we were at the vet, I brought it up yesterday. If I hadn't had to take the cat in to check on the other issue, I would have called him about this because it has become such an issue for both of us humans.

The vet gave me a prescription for a mild sedative to see if that would calm the cat enough to get through the night without vocalizing. As prescribed, I gave him half a pill around 8pm (well, 8:20, but who's counting). By 9:10 he had gotten verrrry laid back. His meow went from MEEOOW to mmmmmrrrroooowwwww, just a little bit slurred. His back legs were wobbly when he walked. He walked along the wall just to keep standing up. This is one confused cat. I know he was saying to himself - "WTF is going on? and why are my humans laughing at me?" To be clear, he's not the brightest or most coordinated cat to begin with, but this was way beyond his standard level of dumb. By the time we went to bed around 10PM (which is about an hour earlier than normal as the humans were also tired last night) we had to carry him up the stairs to bed. His umph had gone flat.

Apart from my early concerns about him trying to go downstairs while still under the influence, I slept well. My DH said he was disturbed in the night by both kitties moving about the bed: under the covers, out from the covers, between the pillows, maneuvering for space around his body; but not by a cat welcoming in the morning by issuing blood curdling yowls directly into his ear. I guess that's a step forward.

Tonight we are going to drop back to a quarter of a pill given closer to 10PM and see how he reacts to that dosage and timing. Giving the pill so much before our bedtime seemed like a waste of some of the effect.

Any other humorous pet/animal stories out there?

**UPDATE**
Giving a quarter of a pill around 9PM Tuesday didn't do so much - he was a little bit stoned, but still pretty active when we went up bed around 10:45. He did let us oversleep (aka hitting the alarm a few too many times without his input) this morning, so maybe we are making progress here. Keep the good sleeping thoughts coming!