Every night before bed my cat either waits at the bathroom for me or runs into the bathroom at full speed for before bed bathroom time. If I’m up too late he tries to get me to go to bed to keep his routine.
Today he wasn’t there so I just went without him.
After I came out he sat at the door staring at me meowing. My wife convinced me to give him fake bathroom time, so I went to the bathroom and sat down and pet him for a minute or two then left.
Except when I left he just sat at the door, clearly knowing it wasn’t real bathroom time. He’s being yelling and howling since and refuses to come to bed now that I’ve broken our ritual.
Our cat when I grew up didn’t have a lot of weird routines, but it wasn’t uncommon for her to accompany us on walks right up until her territory where she would stay and yell at us to come back to safety.
We could hear he calling from two blocks away.