Feline Urine Marking

/ Deer Run Animal Hospital
308-310 East US Highway 30
Schererville, IN
www.deerrunanimalhospital.com
(219) 864-7180

FELINE URINE MARKING

Urine marking can be either sexual or reactional or anxiety related. Sexual urine marking is usually eliminated in spayed and neutered cats. For most pet cats who have been spayed or neutered before puberty, the problem is usually reactional or anxiety related.

Urine marking is a reaction to something that has occurred, or is anticipated by the cat within its territory. The cat sees this as posing a challenge to its security.

The problem may resolve when the cause is removed or accepted by the cat.

I.  Causes of Reactional Urine Marking are many and varied but are usually caused by alterations to cat’s core territory. Examples:

·  Introduction of a new item (furniture, carpet, person or animal)

·  Reorganization of existing items (including redecoration)

·  Introduction to a new environment (temporary or permanent).

·  Social stress from interactions between cats in multi cat households

II.  Preventing Indoor Marking

Considering the Importance of Core Territory

·  Feline territory (especially for outdoor cats) is divided in a central core area which is surrounded by a home range and then leads into a much larger hunting range.

·  The core area is where the cats eat, sleep and play and it represents the safe zone of the territory.

·  In nature, it is only occupied by cats from the same social grouping and therefore marking behavior is unnecessary within this part of the territory.

·  In order to prevent the onset of indoor marking it is therefore necessary to establish the home as a core territory and to minimize any factors which could jeopardize that status.

Provision of suitable eating, sleeping and playing opportunities will be key to establishing a core territory

·  Each cat within the household will need its own feeding station, since eating is not a social behavior in a feline context. It is ideal to feed cats in separate rooms.

·  Sleeping opportunities will be enhanced by the provision of elevated resting places which offer multiple opportunities to rest in seclusion

·  Activity centers which offer a combination of scratching posts, observation platforms and resting hammocks and tunnels can be very useful.

·  Offering cats the opportunity to play within the core territory is important on many levels.

·  It is important to remember that play needs to continue throughout life and should provide a suitable outlet for predatory skills and behaviors.

It is also important to ensure that this core area is not threatened by social intrusion from outside or by incompatibility within the household.

Addressing Social Tension in the Feline Outdoor Neighborhood

·  Keep cats indoors and use cat deterrents outdoors to keep outdoor cats away and out of sight

·  Develop a time share system with neighbors of other cats so that no two cats are out at the same time. This obviously is not always possible for strays and for feline owning neighbors relies on human co-operation which is not always forthcoming.

·  Ensure that the core territory is visually secure with curtains or opaque window clings

·  Remember to place important resources such as food and water stations and litter boxes away from windows or patio doors and arrange feline resting places within the home so that they are not vulnerable to visual invasion from cats outside.

Addressing Social Tension Within the Home

Social threat is not only a risk from cats in the outdoor environment but prevention of indoor urine marking also relies on the suitable selection of feline housemates, taking into consideration the natural basis of social groupings.

·  Cats will naturally form social relationships with siblings and therefore littermates make good potential household companions.

·  In contrast unrelated individuals have less natural basis for forming successful social relationships and increase the risk of urine marking

·  Cats of significantly differing ages, for example those under 2–3 years of age and those over that age, can also struggle to form successful relationships due to their differing social behavior as a result of the natural maturation process.

If the household consists of more than one natural social grouping of cats it will be essential to establish one core territory per social group in order to prevent the risk of marking behavior within the home.

III.  Treating Reactional Indoor Marking

There are 3 components to treat indoor urine marking

1.Breaking the habit
2.Removing the need
3.Ceasing all punishment

1. Breaking the Habit

A.  Clean Appropriately

·  Cleaning the soiled areas effectively is vitally important.

·  As cat urine deposits decay there is a natural drive to top up the marks in order to keep the signal fresh and this habitual topping up is a significant factor in the maintenance of indoor urine marking problems.

·  Avoid products that contain ammonia or chlorine. Certainly to the human nose these products smell clean, but to the cat they smell like urine and can add to the problems rather than help.

B.  Avoid Aversion

·  The use of deterrents is commonly advocated and people have described very elaborate contraptions for this purpose starting with squirt bottles.

·  However these methods are based on the principle of making it uncomfortable or unpleasant to engage in marking behavior and they rely on the induction of negative emotional state, such as fear, in the cat in order to suppress the behavior.

·  Any method that induces a negative emotional state will decrease the cat's perception of safety and security and is therefore contraindicated in the treatment of urine marking behavior.

·  While it is true that such techniques can lead to a rapid cessation of the behavior in the location where the aversive deterrent is applied it should be remembered that in many cases the cat simply moves its marking behavior to less obvious and less accessible locations and

·  In others the cat internalizes its negative emotion and may start to exhibit other, potentially more detrimental, behavioral signs, such as over grooming or inter-cat aggression. The use of aversive deterrents is therefore not to be recommended.

2. Removing the Need

A.  Address Issue of Territory Security

·  Increasing home security by redefining the area as a core territory will help to remove the need to spray.

·  Core territories are defined by the actions of eating, sleeping and playing and therefore increasing the provision of these three activities will help to remove the need for indoor marking.

·  Feeding more frequent, but smaller meals, providing predatory play opportunities using puzzle feeders and fishing rod style toys and increasing the availability of elevated resting places will all help to decrease insecurity and increase feline confidence.

·  Decrease visual vulnerability within the core territory, by moving key resources away from windows and even considering temporary obscuring of windows and patio doors, are also going to be important measures.

·  Where the source of stress is not identified and the cat is showing signs of severe lack of confidence restriction of access in the household to a smaller number of rooms, or in some cases even one room, in order to decrease the size of the cat's defendable territory can help.

B.  Consider Drug Support

·  Fluoxetine can be used on a short term basis to give a more rapid cessation of the behavior than can be achieved with behavioral therapy alone.

·  This is good for owner compliance but also serves to break the habit of indoor marking.

·  The medication is being used to reduce anxiety and improve the cat's positive emotional balance so that it is more acceptable to a change of perception of the home as a safe and secure core territory.

C.  Identify Triggers and Remove

·  Ideally any trigger for marking behavior should be identified and if possible removed.

·  Extensive history taking will necessary to identify these triggers

·  In all too many cases it is either not possible to identify the source of conflict or not possible to remove it once it has been identified.

D.  Use Pheromone Therapy

·  The product Feliway, which is a synthetic analogue of the F3 fraction of the feline facial "pheromone," has given very promising results through its effect of enhancing the perception of the home as safe and secure environment.

·  Its availability as a diffuser device has increased the level of success and made it a very important tool in the treatment of indoor marking problems in cats.

3. Ceasing All Punishment

·  The final rule when dealing with spraying cats is to never punish.

·  Any interaction which induces a negative emotional state in the cat is going to decrease its perception of safety and increase the risk of marking behaviour occurring.

·  The use of deterrents has been mentioned earlier in relation to methods that have been advocated to break the habit of indoor marking.

·  It is important to cease the use of these deterrents and of any direct punishment since, even if the cat is caught in the act, the chances are that inducing negative emotion in the cat will create more problems than it cures.

·  At worst punishment can result in a cat that sprays more frequently, but in less detectable places, and it can totally destroy the cat owner partnership and remove any trust,