How To Stop A Cat From Spraying

Hi, my name is Karen. I'm one of the vets at Cats Protection, the UK's leading cat welfare charity, and I'm going to talk to you today about some aspects of cat care. I'm going to talk to you today about how to stop your cat from spraying.

First of all, let's define what spraying really is. We're talking about urine spraying, and this is when a cat tends to lift its tail and spray a small amount of urine up against a vertical surface. It's quite different to normal urination, where a cat will squat over more of a horizontal or flat surface and void a larger amount of urine - this is normal bladder emptying.

There can be lots of confusion between the two, though, because there can be some bladder problems that cats can get, where they only void a small amount of urine. This can be really serious, and so if at any urination problems, the first thing you need to do is consult your vet and have your cat checked out. Some of these problems can be quite serious, and so it can be quite important to have your cat seen sooner rather than later.

If your cat checks out fine and is perfectly healthy, then there may be a behavioral reason why they spray, and this is quite common. Spraying is actually a natural behavior of cats, and it's something that they will do anyway. It only becomes a problem when they start doing it in locations that we don't like, like inside the home or in the corners of your house.

Cats spray for multiple reasons. They are using their urine as a scent, as a communicator, to tell other cats things, sometimes to tell themselves things. They can use it as a territorial marker, they can be telling other cats where their territory is.

They can also be using it to tell themselves to watch out for a certain area - if they got jumped on or attacked by another cat in a certain spot, they urine-spray that spot to tell themselves to watch out. The kinds of things that can cause a cat to be anxious and so to start spraying in the home are usually going to involve some kind of change in the environment. Cats are creatures of habit, and so they don't like change very much.

So sometimes, you may be able to know what has changed - is there a new baby, or a new animal, new neighbors, renovations going on that you've heard? Those sorts of things can set your pet off to feeling anxious. Sometimes, though, you may not even know. It could just be another cat in the environment that you don't know about, but it's important to help your pet cope with the stress its feeling.

It's really important not to punish your pet when they are spraying in the home, if they have just started, they may just be really anxious. So punishing them is only going to exacerbate that and make the problem worse. What you can do instead is help your pet cope with stress, provide it with ways of coping.

Things like playing with it, making sure it can get up high, making sure it can hide, making sure it's got appropriate toileting places in lots of quiet and away from other cats. If your problem is your cat spraying outside or up against the back of your home, sometimes using deterrents like having spiky plants or tall plants in those areas, can help the problem. If you want any more information on this subject, log on to www.

cats.org.uk. .