SPRAY WARS
Pat Miller
© 2001, Pat Miller/Peaceable Paws, LLC All Rights Reserved
My
husband and I are confirmed believers in keeping cats indoors where they can
safely lead long and happy lives.
Several years ago, however, our 2-year-old neutered male orange tabby,
Tinsel, started spraying in the house.
We tried treating him with drugs that made him groggy, but the day that
he backed up to Paul with a quivering tail, and doused his pants leg with
copious amounts of evil-smelling cat spray was the last straw. Tinsel was banned to the outdoors
during daytime hours, exposed to the hazards of the great unknown, and spent
his nights in the relative security of our outdoor cattery on the back deck.
It broke my heart to put him outside. I worked at an animal shelter at the
time, and was all too familiar with the risks that cats face when they are out
on their own in the real world. I
was also well aware of how difficult it was to stop a cat’s spraying behavior,
and how frequently spraying cats ended up at the animal shelter, surrendered by
owners who could no longer tolerate the offensive odor of cat spray on their
personal possessions and in their homes.
Spraying cats were almost inevitably euthanized. The odor of cat spray is strong, foul,
and difficult to completely eradicate once applied. If the family who loved their cat gave him up because they
couldn’t tolerate his behavior and the resulting stench, how could we expect to
successfully place a spraying cat in a new home with someone who wasn’t even emotionally
attached to him yet?
Why Do They Do It?
Cats
spray primarily to mark their territories. The most common offender is the unaltered adult male, but
females, and neutered males like Tinsel, can also spray. While dominant cats may be more likely
to engage in proactive status spraying than are less assertive ones,
lower-ranking cats may be inclined to spray after an encounter to re-establish
their claim to the territory that they feel they has been trespassed upon. Tinsel began his spraying behavior when
we moved to a new house with lots of free-roaming intact males in the
neighborhood that he could see through our windows. He definitely felt his territory was being invaded.
Other
cats may begin spraying when new cats are brought into the home, often when the
density of the cat population exceeds the carrying capacity of the housing
space. Cats are essentially a
solitary species, not a pack animal.
While we can often succeed in convincing our feline friends to live in
relatively compatible family groups, there is a sensitive equilibrium in the
tribe that, once upset, is hard to regain. Many multiple-cat owners have bemoaned the decision to add
“just one more cat,” with resulting territorial spraying problems, only to
discover that removing the new cat from the population doesn’t necessarily make
the spraying problem go away.
Behavior Modification Options
Litterbox
remedies are generally ineffective in resolving a spraying challenge. Spraying is not simply a failure to use
the litterbox. The two are
distinctly different behavior challenges, and it is important to make the
distinction. When a cat
urinates, it is usually on a horizontal surface -- the floor just outside the
litterbox, the comforter on the master bedroom bed, or the imported Shetland
wool sweater lying on the arm of the sofa. Spraying is usually done on a vertical surface; the telltale
evidence is often found on walls, doors, windows, scratching posts and other
upright objects such as your spouse’s pants leg. Long ago I rented a room for a time in a home with a spayed
female cat who regularly sprayed the front of our communal toaster oven
door. Woe to the roommate who
neglected to clean the door prior to turning the oven on!
As
with most, if not all behavior challenges, prevention is a far simpler approach
than trying to fix things after the fact.
Timely sterilization of young kittens is an effective way to preempt the
onset of territorial spraying. It
doesn’t always work, however.
Tinsel was neutered at six months of age, and still developed a spraying
problem later on when we moved to a cat-laden neighborhood.
Once
you have determined that you are, in fact, dealing with a spraying challenge,
it’s time to take action. Of
course, if you have not already spayed or neutered, do it yesterday. Ninety percent of male cats and 95% of
females who were sterilized after the onset of the spraying behavior stopped
their spraying as a result of the surgery, according to a 1973 study by B.L.
Hart and R.E. Barrett. At the same
time, have your veterinarian conduct a complete examination of your cat to be
sure there are no medical conditions that could be causing or contributing to
the spraying. If your spraying cat
is already spayed or neutered or continues to spray following surgery, it’s
time to implement a behavior management and modification program.
Before
you begin, you must clean your house thoroughly to remove any traces of cat
spray from all anointed surfaces.
Do the same outside your house, to remove any marks left by neighborhood
cats. Be sure to use an
enzyme-based cleaner such as Nature’s Miracle in order to deactivate the
odor-causing ingredients in cat spray.
Regular household cleaners may do the job to our noses’ satisfaction,
but a cat’s sense of smell is infinitely keener than ours; they can detect the
smell long after we are convinced it’s gone. You will need to repeat this drill regularly if neighbor
cats are spraying the outside of your home, and anytime spraying recurs inside
the house.
Reducing
your cat’s stress is an important key to modifying his spraying behavior. Spend some time observing and
documenting his activities. Is
there any consistency to when and where he sprays? These are important clues to the stressors that are causing
him to spray. Is it always in the
late afternoon by the window overlooking the back yard? Perhaps that’s when
Rocky, the neighbor’s macho intact male Siamese is making his rounds. Ways to reduce the impact of this
stressor could include talking to your neighbor about neutering Rocky (perhaps
even offering to pay for the surgery, or helping to direct Rocky’s senior
citizen owner to a low-cost clinic and driving her there yourself); giving the
neighbor convincing educational materials on why it’s healthier for Rocky to live
indoors; closing the blinds of the offended window or putting your cat in
another room for a while in the afternoon so he can’t see Rocky when he strolls
through; or, if Rocky’s owner is unapproachable, unresponsive, irresponsible or
perhaps even nonexistent, collecting Rocky and taking him to your local animal
shelter. You may have to resolve
the guilt you feel about sending him to probable euthanasia, but your guilt
should be offset by the vast improvement in your own cat’s quality of life, and
the knowledge that Rocky won’t be out roaming around producing litters of baby
kittens for whom there are not enough homes, or getting sick and dying a slow
death from a deadly cat disease such as feline leukemia, feline aids, or feline
infectious peritonitis.
If
the participants in your spray wars are within your own household, the
challenge is even greater. You
will need to try to minimize the interaction between the spraying felines, and
look to other measures to desensitize your combatants to each other. Your best bet is to remove them to
separate parts of the house to give their arousal levels a chance to subside,
and then introduce a desensitization and relaxation program. When they have had time to calm down, you
can try a gradual reintroduction.
Gradual
reintroduction works best if you combine it with counter conditioning. Right now, your cat’s involuntary
response to the presence of the cat who triggers the spraying behavior is
“Yuck, BAD!” Counter conditioning
changes his involuntary response when he sees the other cat to “Yay,
GOOD!” The best way to do this is
with food. Take Sprayer’s
favorite, yummiest-in-the-world kitty treat and put it away. From now on, he gets it only when he is
in the presence of Trigger or of something that smells strongly of
Trigger. After Sprayer has spent
at least a week calming down in his own private quarters away from Trigger,
carry Trigger’s bed with you into Sprayer’s room and set it down on the floor. As Sprayer approaches, start feeding
him his yummy treats one after the other, non-stop for 30 – 60 seconds. Before he begins to lose his enthusiasm
for the treats, pick up Trigger’s bed and remove it from the room. Stop feeding the treats as soon as you
remove the bed. Repeat this
exercise several times a day with the bed or other items that are strongly
associated with Trigger. You are
trying to convince Sprayer that Trigger’s presence (or the signs thereof)
causes wonderful things to happen.
If you succeed, Sprayer will want Trigger to be around so that wonderful
things can happen (i.e. – his favorite treats rain from the heavens).
When
you get the sense that Sprayer immediately looks to you for yummies when he is
in the presence of Trigger-scented objects, it is time to introduce Trigger
himself, at a distance. While you
sit in the far corner of Sprayer’s room with Sprayer in your lap or next to you
on the sofa or floor, have your assistant bring Trigger to the doorway, just
where Sprayer can see him. Make
treats rain from the heavens, non-stop, one at a time. After 5-10 seconds have your assistant
leave with Trigger. Stop feeding
treats. Repeat this several times
a day if possible, several times per session, gradually increasing the length
of time that Trigger stays in view, and gradually moving closer to the doorway
with Sprayer. As long as all is
going well, you can gradually move the counter conditioning exercises out into
the rest of the house, and eventually return to a more normal lifestyle with
the two cats – although you will always want to make sure good things happen to
Sprayer when Trigger is around in order to reinforce the “Yay, GOOD” response
that you have programmed into Sprayer’s brain. If both cats are spraying, you will have your assistant feed
treats to Trigger at the same time you are feeding treats to Sprayer.
Counter conditioning takes time and it isn’t easy to be
patient with the process. Nor is
it always successful. As hard as
it is to contemplate, you may at some point need to consider the painful step
of placing one or more of your cats in a new home, if it appears that some of
your cats’ purrsonalities are simply incompatible with the others.
You Are Getting Sleepy…
Whether
your cat’s stressors are outdoors, within the home, or both, relaxation
techniques can help him maintain his equanimity in the face of chaos. The calmer the household environment,
the less stressed your cat will be.
If yours is an active, noisy home, set up a quiet space for your cat,
and when your six-year-old son has his friends over for games of race-through-the-house-and-yell,
be clear that the cat’s room is off-limits. Find a way to lock the door if necessary.
During quiet times, start doing massage and acupressure
exercises with your cat. Most of
us already love to stroke our cats, so learning a few easy techniques to
maximize the benefits of that stroking is an easy task.
Short
of resorting to medications prescribed by your veterinarian, you can also use
herbal and homeopathic remedies to help calm your spraying cat. Some cat owners report great success
with homeopathic remedies, such as Rescue Remedy from the Bach Flower
Essences. Others have found
calming herbs such as Catnip, Chamomile, Valerian, St. John’s Wort, and Kava
Kava to be effective. There are
also pre-packaged calming remedies and stress formulas for cats available from
various herbal retail sources. It
is best to consult with a veterinarian who is knowledgeable in complementary
medicine prior to administering these remedies to your cat; these herbs may be
natural but they are not necessarily harmless – they work because they have
active ingredients that affect your cat’s systems in some manner. (For a list of holistic vets around the
country, go to www.altvetmed.com.) You want to be sure your cat doesn’t have
any other medical condition that would preclude the use of herbs, and that you
are not overdosing or combining herbs that may have a deleterious effect when
used together.
Better Living Through Pharmaceutical Intervention
Although
most of us prefer to take the least invasive approach possible when resolving
our feline friends’ behavioral problems, sometimes more drastic steps are
necessary. Karen L. Overall, M.A.,
V.M.D., Ph.D., in her book Clinical Behavioral Medicine For Small Animals,
lists Amitriptyline (Elavil), Buspirone (BuSpar), Clomipramine (Anafranil),
Diazepam (Valium), Imipramine (Pamolar), and progestins as drugs that can be
effective in controlling spraying.
All of these are powerful chemicals with potential for serious
side-effects, and should only be used in consultation with your veterinarian,
after she has fully disclosed all the potential harm that may result from their
use.
Most
of these drugs were not available when Tinsel was a part of our family, nor
were the benefits of massage and acupressure widely known and accepted. We tried Diazepam. It stopped the spraying, but we hated
how badly it drugged him. Besides,
as soon as we tried to reduce the dosage, he started spraying again.
In confirmation of all of our fears, with his exposure to
the outside world, Tinsel contracted a condition that we were unable to
diagnose, and began wasting away at the young age of seven years. If I only
knew then what I know now, we would have tried many more management and
modification techniques, perhaps even some of the powerful pharmaceuticals,
before sentencing him to life outdoors and a too-early death in my arms in the
euthanasia room of my shelter. I
will always regret that we couldn’t do more for him.
Fortunately, thanks to advances in our knowledge of cat
behavior and the benefits of complementary medicine, there is much we can do
today for a sprayer before having to even consider making the painful choice
between banishment outdoors, powerful drugs, or an abbreviated life.
A 10-STEP SPRAYING MODIFICATION
PROGRAM
1. Spay
or neuter your cat.
2. Have
your vet conduct a complete examination of your cat to make sure there are no
medical conditions that are causing or contributing to the spraying.
3. Clean
your house thoroughly, inside and out, to remove any traces of spray.
4. Document
your cat’s spraying behavior – when, where, how often.
5. Identify
likely triggers (stressors) for the spraying – neighbor cat, feral colony, your
own cats, previous feline residents in the house, etc.
6. Develop
an action plan to manage, minimize or eliminate each of the triggers you have
identified.
7. Implement
the action plan, including counter conditioning, while continuing to document
the spraying behavior to determine the effectiveness of the plan. Modify the plan as necessary.
8. Learn
and apply relaxation techniques such as acupressure, massage and T-Touch (see
Resources).
9. Consult
with a holistic veterinarian (www.altvetmed.com) about the use of calming herbs
and homeopathic remedies.
10. If
necessary, consult with a knowledgeable veterinarian about the use of
pharmaceuticals to treat spraying behavior. Make a fully informed choice about whether to assume the
risks that go along with the potential benefits of these drugs.
RESOURCES
The following are just a few of the many resources available
to help you find natural approaches to resolving your cat’s spraying
challenge. An Internet search can
turn up even more.
Acu-Cat: A Guide to Feline Acupressure by Nancy Zidonis
& Amy Snow
The Healing Touch: The Proven Massage Program For Cats And
Dogs by Michael W. Fox
The Tellington TTouch: A Revolutionary Natural Method To
Train And Care For Your Favorite Animal by Linda Tellington-Jones
Cat Massage: A Whiskers-To-Tail Guide To Your Cat’s Ultimate
Petting Experience by Maryjean Ballner
The New Natural Cat by Anitra Frazier
The Complete Herbal Handbook For Dogs And Cats by Juliette
de Bairacli Levy
The American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association
410-569-0795
www.altvetmed.com
AHVMA@compuserve.com