Cat Spraying Question

Factual Questions
1

OK … I am a dog person , but have recently aquired 2 cats from rescue . Ruby is a perfectly mannered little girl who really has done nothing wrong . Loves my dogs , uses the litter box religiously , is sweet and affectionate .

Ruby

Charlie is the newer kitty , he was rescued from a burning house , and had had 5 months of rehab . I am supposed to get a voucher to have him neutered in the mail , but have not gotten it yet . So he is spraying the house . :frowning: The house now REEKS of cat urine . I cannot catch him at it .

My questions to the cat-wise Dopers : Will he most likely stop this when he is neutered ? How can I break him of it when I can’t CATCH him at it ?

Another cat-related question : He also is very … vocal . He wanders the house when Ruby gets out of his sight SCREAMING for her . Is this a normal Tom-catty thing ? Will it change when he is neutered ?

2

How old is Charlie? The older he is, the less likely neutering will completely stop spraying behavior once it is started. Call the place you got him, tell them the problem and explain that he needs to be neutered NOW.

As for the calling, that may decrease with neutering, but some cats are just talkers.

3

He’s doing the typical tom thing. You can’t stop him from spraying even if you could get to him right when he’s doing it. It’s almost an involuntary action on the cat’s part.

Neutering often - usually - stops toms from spraying but not always. Usually the earlier you can have them neutered, the better chance you have. (Don’t panic - some males are neutered very late and do stop spraying.) Also, if he’s spraying he is most likely now sexually mature so you cannot let him out, and if your other cat is not spayed yet, KEEP THEM APART!

Not sure if you’re talking about a coupon from Friends of Animals but in any case, make the appointment now. Most vets that take FoA coupons, or any reduced-fee neutering coupons, have long waiting lists. If you are lucky it will take only a month to get an appointment. Start planning now - the sooner you neuter him but better for both him and you.

Re his being vocal: some cats just talk a lot. Certain breeds tend towards chattiness. He might just be demonstrating anxiety at noticing that his buddy is missing. This anxiety can also be causing some of the spraying: although it’s usually a sign of territory-marking, some cats spray under stress. If you can, it would be good to make sure he gets lots of affection, soothing words, and a quiet unhectic household.

4

Thgey really don’t know how old Charlie is , they guessed between a year and 18 months . He is a total inside kitty , and Ruby was spayed right away . So that is a problem I won’t have to deal with .

I got him from PAWS , and my own vet will be doing the neuter . He can usually work me in like the next day . I may call him and see if he can do the surgery and accept the voucher after .

Charlie really is a SWEET kitty , I just hope he stops this nonsense .

Heh… had to chuckle about the non-stressful environment comment . With 4 dogs (including a 9 week old puppy) and 2 cats … it ain’t NEVER gona be non-hectic :smiley: .

5

Oh jeez. I feel your pain. I have gone through this.

First, you need a litter box for each cat. 2 cats=2 litter boxes. Make sure they are in separate areas from each other, away from their food and water. Keep them clean, cats don’t like them and will piss somewhere else if they get dirty.

To find the urine areas get a black light. You can get one at wal mart for like $10. hook it to an extension cord and turn the lights out. the cat urine will show up under the black light.

You will need to buy an enzyme odor solution, like Naturls Miracle, Simple Solution, etc. Go to a pet store and get a gallon at least.

Now when you find the cat urine spots, DRENCH it with the solution. I do mean DRENCH. you cannot use too much.

Neutering may or may not help. It is best to have them fixed BEFORE they start spraying. My cats were fixed but did not stop spraying until I got them separate boxes

6

oh yeah by word of explanation. what happens is, urine soaks down to the padding, and when it drys it leaves behind salts from the urine that stink especially when it gets damp. the ezyme solution digests the salts. it needs to soak through to the carpet padding to get to the salts,

7

I advise that toms be castrated at 12 weeks of age to reduce the likelyhood of inappropriate elimination behavior. Once the behavior begins, response to surgery is a crapshoot. It is my personal belief that shelters that create a situation such as you are describing in the OP are acting irresponsibly.

BTW, the most common reason for feline euthanasia (other than terminal disease) is inappropriate elimination behavior.

8

I do wonder why the rehab facility never neutered him. It would have been an easy operation to do while he was under for another procedure related to the burns.

I am waiting for the day when every shelter in the U.S. practices juvenile spay/neuter and allows no adoptions prior to S/N, and when vets who are still in the Dark Ages about juvenile S/N join us in the 21st century. Thank you vetbridge for advancing the cause. It’s a shame more vets don’t think like you.

9

Vetbridge , I wish you were MY vet . I agree 100% , I think he should have been neutered when he was hospitalized for the burns . I am hoping that I can correct this habit with all the great suggestions I have gotten . He really is a wonderful kitty … and I got my first real PURR out of him today ! :slight_smile: He is not so nervous now and setting in with everyone , even played with the new puppy a little today .

Now … off to WalMart & PetSmart to stock up on supplies … including a second litter box .

10

My cat recently started marking.

She is spayed and is about 4 years old. She has never done this previously and she just hopped up on the couch and pissed on it. She did the completly oblivious cat thing as I yelled at her and acted really suprised when I picked her up. “Where am I? What’s going on?”

Her box is clean and previously, if she had some problem she would pee in the bathtub. But now she has marked the couch, the loveseat, and MY BED! The only thing I can think is that the new bag of food I got on Friday is not to her liking but she usually isn’t that finicky.

Any ideas?

11

Interesting…has anything else in the environment changed? any additional pets or peopel in the house?

is she marking (spraying against the side of the couch) or urinating? there is a big difference

12

There is a product called “Feliway” which supposedly mimics the pheromone cats leave by cheek rubbing. According to the literature the cat will not urine spray where it has cheek-marked.

I have some experiences with this and found it somewhat effective. There are a couple of caveats though. Basically, it is pretty expensive, and you have to pretty much coat the house in it, especially if there are multiple marking locations like you have. I think they say to nail every marked or potential-to-be-marked location twice a day for a month when there are two cats in the house. Believe you me, that’s a lot of Feliway.

You can buy it at the larger pet food stores, like Pet Supplies Plus, Petco, etc. Oddly enough, by far the cheapest place (at 17.95) to purchase it is from this horse-supply service I used to use. They are extremely reputable with excellent customer service:

Usually its around $25-$29 per bottle in the pet stores.

13

I have used Feliway with some success, However, you need to be aware that it will stain any painted walls you spray it on, regardless what it says on the bottle.

14

You could use the Feliway diffuser too. Here is a link to their site. (Doing a search for “Feliway official site” doesn’t bring it up on the first page.) As for the other cat that is marking now that the food has changed, though IANAV, I would hazard the guess that maybe the ash content of the food has caused a possible UTI? It’s best to get that ruled out by your vet in any case.

15

Many cats demand their own box.

Feliway helps, sometimes.

I have found that most “peeing outside the box” problems are rooted in a box that isn’t clean enough or big enough.

16

She get on the couch and it get on the back and seat cushion.

We live in a ground floor apartment and the windows are at ground level. About a week ago I had a fan on and it smelt like a cat must have pooed right by the window.

Otherwise she seems healthy. She is alert, eyes clear, plays like she usually does, no loss of appetite. So I don’t know. Some have suggested a bladder infection but I have no idea.

17

To the original OP:

Hope is not lost. About a year ago or so, a couple of months after our ancient 20yo cat died, we became the home for a stray male that tried to adopt a cat-allergic friend of ours. This cat was not neutered, and the vet guessed he was somewhere between 2 and 3 years old, but couldn’t get any closer than that.

Life was good for the first 4 or 5 days, then we decided that we should get a second cat to keep the first one company, and that we had better do it soon before he decided that he owned the house. Daughter and I happened to wander into a local pet store with a Humane Society branch, and they happened to have a young female cat (about a year old) who had been spayed only two days before. We took the female cat home.

Even though she was spayed, the tom definitely realized that she was FEMALE. We were trying to keep him “intact” for at least a couple of weeks, just in case we found his legitimate owner, so we separated them, giving them each their own room with their own bed and litter box in the basement, letting one of them out at a time to get to know us and the rest of the house. However, even though this had not been a problem earlier, the tom started spraying anything that stayed still for more than ten minutes. After a couple of days, we decided that we had to choose between giving him up or keeping him ourselves, so we got him into the vet to be snipped as soon as they could schedule him.

Within a week or two, he was back to being a nice, friendly puddy-tat, who peed only in the litter box, and who treated the female as a playmate rather than a sex toy.

As for the meowing, I think that is more a personality thing. Our male cat is definitely a hunter, and despite his girth, it’s pretty obvious that he has the skills to keep himself fed when he can’t find people (although he has no qualms about begging for food by being the sweetest cat he can be). He very rarely uses his voice at all, possibly because there isn’t much sense in making a lot of noise when you are hunter. However, it is very obvious that he was raised in a herd of cats, since he has yet to meet a cat that he doesn’t like, and really wants to be friends with our other cat. (We live fairly close to a rural area, so we think he was probably a barn cat whose hormones led him too far afield.)

The female, on the other hand, was raised entirely as an indoor cat before we got her, and she was probably taken from her birth litter at a very tender age. She was terribly frightened by the breeze from an open window, and had never touched grass or dirt outside, based on her reactions. She also wanted nothing to do with the other cat at first, although we don’t know if this was because of her background or his hormones when we first got her. However, she is far and away the noisiest cat we’ve ever had. We have a tendency to meow back at cats who are talking to us, and the first few times we meowed at her, she looked scared and shocked, like she had no idea anyone besides her could make that particular noise.

In the long run, they have learned to tolerate and like each other, even if they will probably never be best friends. They play with each other frequently, and like to keep track of where the other one is.

For the urine problem:

Our ancient cat became incontinent when she was around 10 years old (She lived to be 18 or so), and absolutely refused to use a litter box, for no reason that we could determine. The vet couldn’t find any physical reason for the problem, and couldn’t do much besides give us advice like keeping her shut up in a small room during the day (which we pretty much refused to do).

We found that Oxyclean was a very good product for getting rid of urine, and we periodically soaked areas that she liked to use with a weak Oxyclean solution. After she died, we rented a carpet cleaner, and steamed the carpets with a solution of Oxyclean and water, followed by carpet shampoo with a formula for pet odors. By the time we got new cats, the urine odor was completely gone from all of her favorite spots.