Cat Spraying, Please Help

julesrtc

About a year ago our cat(she is neutered) started spraying curtains and doors etc. we brought her to the vet and he said change food from dry to wet as wasnt drinking water and had kidney infection. She stopped and everything was ok again.
But within the last 2 weeks she has sprayed curtains and husbands golf bag and he is not happy, threatening to lock her out of the house now!!
I must admit its very distressing as i feel like i can smell it everywhere.
I brought her to vets and he said its not kidney infection but might be behavioral.. she mostly does it when we are out of house so come home to puddles in hall... we close all internal doors when we go out and she can come and go in hall with cat flap.. Vet mentioned rescue remedy but i dont think so..
Anyone else have these problems or any suggestions??

MsFifers

I just read a book by Vicky Halls - a cat psychologist - very interesting and I think your problem is pretty common. This is her website http://www.vickyhalls.net/FelFAQ.html

In the book, it seemed that most of the soiling incidents sprang from a particular incident such as cystitis or a threatening incident with another cat. Cat flaps were a common problem area because the a cat can see them as an entry point to the home for neighbouring cats - and sometimes this would freak out a cat - even if they just see the neighbouring cat through a window.

Her advice in the book was usually:
1. Use anti-urine cleaning product (try pet shops?) to decontaminate previous areas of soiling to remove the association for the cat. The urine smell can soak right through carpets etc so sometimes the house owners would have to replace them! The cat can smell a lingering trace of pee even if humans can't so this was v. important to do.
2. Put down plenty of litter trays. One per cat is not enough. The location would be very important ie has to be easy to access but secluded eg not near a window, a busy corridor, beside a washing machine that might switch on suddenly. No litter tray liners allowed. (Sometimes a previous litter tray would have a bad association for the cat so the owners would have to buy a new ones).
3. She would also suggest setting up high resting areas for the cats - either getting one of those cat trees, or just making sure the cat could access a wardrobe top or high shelf. These high resting places are v. important for making a cat feel secure.
4. Keep the litter tray spotlessly clean of course is v. important!
5. Set aside some "quality time" each evening to play with the cat.

Can't remember anything else...

I have the book at home so will check it again tonight to see if there were any other suggestions!

Whoever said cats are self-sufficient???!

MsFifers

Oh - just remembered something else. She said that sometimes owners want the cat to use outdoors for the loo rather than a litter tray - but that if a bully neighbour cat is around, the cat might be frightened to do this, so will go inside instead. Only solution is to provide a safe indoor litter tray and block the cat flap.

Rancid

julesrtc wrote:

About a year ago our cat(she is neutered) started spraying curtains and doors etc. we brought her to the vet and he said change food from dry to wet as wasnt drinking water and had kidney infection. She stopped and everything was ok again.
But within the last 2 weeks she has sprayed curtains and husbands golf bag and he is not happy, threatening to lock her out of the house now!!
I must admit its very distressing as i feel like i can smell it everywhere.
I brought her to vets and he said its not kidney infection but might be behavioral.. she mostly does it when we are out of house so come home to puddles in hall... we close all internal doors when we go out and she can come and go in hall with cat flap.. Vet mentioned rescue remedy but i dont think so..
Anyone else have these problems or any suggestions??

If she's spraying *up against* things, she's marking her territory. It's a natural thing for cats, and although a lot of people don't realise it, female cats do it as well as males.
You mention golf bags..... is it possible that that golf bag has come home with the scent of another cat already on it?
If so, your cat is responding very naturally and over-spraying to assert herself. Unfortunately, you'll have to take into account that anything that golf bag has touched probably has had the cat-scent transferred to it so maybe a good clean-up with some citrus cleaner might help!

If she's still marking her territory after all that, find a homoeopathic vet and pay him a visit. My old neutered tom had a tendency to spray when we moved any furniture but one of the homoeopathic remedies *always* worked.
If you want my vet's info, no problem.

Good luck!

Pianist2891

Can I strongly recommend you visit www.kittenadoption.ie - the message board there is filled with excellent and helpful information, and you are sure to find the help you need there.

julesrtc

Sorry to bring this up again but she started again in the last few weeks!!! Nothing has changed at all in our house!!! The fire is on most nights and she is curled up on my lap most nights!!! We leave the cat flap open now all the time so she comes and goes as she pleases!!
The last 3 nights i have stopped her spraying the curtains but last night my husband was there by himself and said she did it and was all over the floor, she stands on the couch and sprays!!
We have her 4 years and im afraid my husband will refuse to let her in the house soon enough, the house feels dirty to me all the time looking for it everywhere.
It getting to the stage where im smelling it everywhere, found the curtains in spare room sprayed, our bedroom door is destroyed at the end(door is always open) and sometimes our bed(disgusting i know!!) and door going into our sitting room.
I dont know where to start to correct it or what to do!!!!!!!!

lostinnappies

Does she have a litter tray? One thought is that she may prefere to go inside (as sugested above) because of other cats or because that is what she has always done.

Did she start spraying immediatly after her spey (within a day or two)?

Cats do spray after neutering but usually its more the males then the females. Sometimes during surg there can be damage to the nerves in the bladder. Make sure she is spraying and not urinating.

ps if its spraying feliway room oderisers could help her relax

MsFifers

Did she stop and then start again? Did you figure out what was the cause of it the last time?

Its a v. distressing problem, I'm sure you must be so fed up and upset to have your house destroyed.

It could be a range of reasons - did you try any of the previous suggestions?

You will need to give more info about what you have tried before and what worked and what didn't work. Also what might have changed in the cat's circumstances, and her health etc.

mary123

Sorry cant help my 4 yr old spayed cat does the same. She never did this till she was spayed. Have tried everything that has been suggested here and no good. Her best place to spray is the front door and the bath.

The Sweeper

There's spraying and there's just peeing - as someone said earlier, a spray is a territorial scent marking - tail lifted, pee squirted. Just peeing involves the cat squatting somewhere and peeing and then trying to cover it over. The former is territorial and difficult, the latter is also difficult but could be more explained by lack of litter trays etc.

Either way, you'll have to retrain her. You might feel very disheartened, but you're not alone. The top two reasons owners leave cats into the local pound are urinating and litter issues inside the house, and over-vocalisation.

Cats are trainable. They're not as biddable as dogs, but you can definitely train them - they just have different motivations. You're going to need to find something your cat loves - the easiest first option is a food treat. Include the treat rations in kitty's daily diet (or you'll end up with one fat kitty).

Then find somewhere your cat doesn't particularly like being and be prepared to use that place for kitty timeouts. (In our house, it's the bathroom. Or in fact, any room with the door shut and all the interesting stuff on the other side of that door.)

Then you need a fresh litter tray, super-clean, and use a low to no scent cat litter.

Finally you will need to thoroughly scrub anywhere she's peed already - dry clean the curtains, scrub the carpets etc. Don't use ammonia based cleaners, because to the cat it just smells like you've scent-marked over where they've scent-marked, so they'll need to scent-mark again. I have a lavander-scented pet-pee cleaning spray that works nicely.

The very basic approach is straightforward, but you need to be on the ball. First, spend time with kitty and the cat litter. Every time she looks remotely interested in it, praise her and fuss over her and give her a treat. After you feed her supper and she walks away to clean herself, pick her up and put her on the [clean] cat litter. Do it a couple of times. (You can even scratch about in it yoruself to encourage her, hence the 'clean' requirement.)

If you see her get up and start to scent about the place in the evenings, looking for somewhere to spray, pick her up and take her to the cat litter.

DO NOT SHOUT AT HER BEFORE SHE SPRAYS SOMETHING. This is where you need to be on the ball - you need to watch her so you catch her before she sprays, and take her to the litter tray, but if you're a bit too late, still don't shout at her before she sprays, because then you're shouting at her for not spraying.

If she does spray: admonish her immediately - and I mean IMMEDIATELY. There is zero point walking into a room that contains a cat and a puddle of pee and starting to shout. You need to be giving out to an actively peeing cat. Immediately pick her up and relegate her to the timeout zone. Slapping your cat is pointless - so is rubbing her nose in what she's just done - both actions make the cat think you have obnoxious manners, but they don't associate it with what they've just done.

This might sound odd, but don't take her to the cat litter after she sprays. If she's peed somewhere in the house, she now doesn't need to pee, and you want the cat litter to be an exclusively good experience - so no shouting and then dumping her unceremoniously on the litter tray.

Use the timeout 10 minutes to clean up whatever she's just sprayed.

Other options - have you any cat scratching posts in the house? If not, buy some and put them where she pees. The scratching act is also a scent mark act, so if you give her something she's allowed to mark, especially by scratching, she may take that on instead of just peeing on things.

As others have said, buy more than one cat litter tray (the supercheap plastic trays are fine) and fill them with cheap, no-scent litter for now and dot them about the place in the house.

Good luck with it. It's a difficult enough habit to break, but you can break it if you're consistent. (Plus it's weird to feel relieved as you watch your newly-behaved cat using its cat litter tray.)