One of the challenges for veterinary surgeons working in the media is that is that they are often asked about one specific patient, with a particular problem. While it’s helpful for the individual owner to discuss their own pet, it can be less enthralling for other readers.
Here are a couple of examples:
- Ginger, a 5 year old neutered tom cat, had started urinating in his owner’s bathtub, and occasionally in the sink downstairs. He had always been a “good” cat, going out through the cat flap to do his business. Why would he change like this?
- Harry, a two year old neutered male tabby cat, had recently started to suffer from injuries caused by cat fights. His owner had seen a big tom cat stalking him in the garden, and the cat had even come into the kitchen on one occasion, stealing Harry’s food. Why was this other cat doing this, and what could be done?
Ideally, both of these questions deserve to be analysed in their own right, and a full, detailed response given. Vets in the media often do this, publishing the dialogue and outcome. While this is useful, it isn’t always the best way to give a detailed explanation about cat behaviour that will be useful for all readers.
This is an area where Wikivet offers a different approach. There are two Wikivet sections that are particularly relevant to the cases under discussion.
First, there is an entire section on feline territorial behaviour. This is an up-to-date scientific review of our current understanding of cat social life, and it’s highly relevant to any incident involving cat-cat interactions. The Wikivet entry includes some useful facts:
- In urban areas the density of cat populations may be high, exceeding 50 cats per square kilometre.
- 81% of 734 UK cat owners whose cats were allowed outdoor access indicated that their neighbours also had at least one cat that was allowed outside
- In houses with a standard cat flap, 24.8% reported that other cats came into their home to fight with their cats, and 39.4% reported that they came in to steal food.
- Cats that had experienced injuries due to conflict with other cats showed 3.9 times the rate of indoor spray marking compared with cats that had not experienced injuries.
You can read the full Wikivet page for yourself to find out more helpful facts about cat social life.
Second, another Wikivet page focuses specifically on the issue of indoor marking, highlighting the fact that the two main scenarios leading to indoor marking are conflict with non-resident cats, and conflict with resident cats. The page suggests some answers that may help specific cases, including mentions of treatment approaches ( from an electronic coded cat flap so that outside cats cannot gain access to the home to the use of Feliway diffusers and spray, to mentions of some of the psychoactive medication that may be prescribed by vets for super-stressed moggies.
There are also links to detailed videos by behavioural specialists which go into more details on the subject.
So if you have a cat who seems to be agitated by local rivals, or who has taken to indoor urinating, read these Wikivet pages. They may help you solve the problem, and if they don’t, you’ll be far better informed when you do take your “badly behaving” cat to your vet for the next stage of help.
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