Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:

I have a 9-month-old male cat. He’s been an inside cat since I got him — other than a few overnight outings when he’s gotten out an open window or a door left open half a minute too long. My only problem with him is his yowling. His meows vary from a normal meow to a deeper-toned one that almost echoes in the hall. I leave a window open for him so he can enjoy the outside world even though it reaches -40 outside during the winter. I’ve bought him every toy imaginable, keep his bowls filled and his litterbox clean. I also give him as much attention as possible; I even pet him before I pet the dog when I get home from work. My roommate is getting ticked about the crying, and now my girlfriend is saying she wants his manhood reduced by 2/3. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not mine to take, so he can keep them til he sprays one time. Any ideas as what to do for him other then letting him be an indoor-outdoor cat?

~ Junior

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Siouxsie: The kinds of meows and howls you describe are made by sexually mature tomcats when they detect the alluring aroma of a female cat in heat.

Thomas: I know you’re not going to want to hear this, but the only way you’re going to be able to stop that noise is to have your cat neutered.

Dahlia: Mama knows some guys that have hangups about having their male animals neutered. We don’t know what that’s all about. Mama says she’s never met a lady who refused to have her cat spayed because she’d be robbing her “poor kitty” of her womanhood.

Siouxsie: First, you need to understand that cats don’t have the same perceptions about sexuality and manliness that humans do.

Thomas: I can speak about this from personal experience. I’m neutered, and I got fixed when I was less than a year old. It hasn’t made a single bit of difference to me. The only thing that bothered me about it was that I had to go to the vet and it hurt to sit down for a day or two afterwards.

Dahlia: And believe me when I say that my gorgeous Thomas is just as manly as any boy cat I’ve ever met! He just has better manners.

Siouxsie: Well, Dahlia, even through all that obnoxious fawning, you do make a good point: Neutered cats make much better housemates. They don’t cry all night, they don’t spray, and they don’t try to fight with every other cat in their house.

Thomas: Another important thing to know, Junior, is that by not having your cat fixed, you’re putting him at risk for some serious problems. Not only might he get hit by a car when he gets out, as you fear, but when he starts fighting with other tomcats over females in heat, he could get seriously injured by those cats! These injuries can lead to abscesses and can even result in your cat getting feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) or feline leukemia (FeLV).

Dahlia: Let us tell you a story about a cat we once knew. Kitty Jim’s man “couldn’t stand getting his balls cut off” and never had him neutered. Because of that, Jim was the classic fighting, screaming and — well, you know — tomcat. When Mama finally convinced Jim’s man to get him neutered (after he bit Thomas, Sinéad and Siouxsie), she also had him tested for FIV and FeLV. Unfortunately, he came up positive for FIV. Because he was so aggressive, he was literally a public health hazard for other cats.

Siouxsie: And we all had to get tested for FIV and FeLV all over again! I was so mad!

Thomas: Mama worked with her vet to try and place Jim in a home with other FIV+ cats, but nobody wanted an aggressive cat. No shelter would take him because he was known to have FIV. The man’s lifestyle didn’t allow for keeping Jim confined until he mellowed out. Long story short: his man made the heartbreaking decision to have him put to sleep.

Dahlia: We’d hate for your cat to meet a similar fate.

Siouxsie: One more thing — it’s a better idea to get your cat neutered before he starts spraying. Once he starts, he may get in the habit, and trust us when we say you don’t want that!

Thomas: While it’s true that neutered-kitty spray is much less pungent than tomcat spray, it’s still a habit humans don’t like.

Dahlia: Even after you have your little man fixed, it’s going to take a couple of weeks for the testosterone to completely leave his system — so his spray will still reek for a while after the surgery.

Siouxsie: Right now your cat is very stressed. Because his sex drive is awake and he can’t leave his house (unless he escapes), his body is sending him all sorts of crazy signals that he can’t do anything about. That level of tension is not good for his health.

Thomas: Because he’s so stressed, we’d recommend that you invest in a Feliway diffuser and place it in the room where your cat hangs out the most. This “happy cat pheromone” product will help to reduce sexual stress and will also help him be calm after he comes home from surgery.

Dahlia: It seems to us that you’re doing your best to give your cat everything he could possibly want, and you’re a very good cat caretaker. We hope you can overcome your personal issue about having your kitty neutered: he will be a much better housemate once his hormones calm down.

Siouxsie: That’s right, Dahlia. We hope this helps, Junior. Good luck to you and your kitty.

Thomas: And remember, real men have their pets neutered!

Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:

My cat Hogan used to meow starting at 6 p.m. You can even set your watch by him. Our other cat died this week and Hogan is now meowing non-stop, day and night. We have tried everything under the sun over the last few years and nothing has worked. He is Burmese and I believe he was weaned too early, but also I think it’s part of his personality.

Soon he will be relegated to the garage at night. I have to get some sleep! He won’t play with toys either. Never has. And he even meows when we give him attention. The water squirter works temporarily — a few minutes at best. I know he’s stressed about the other cat, but he is making all of us stressed too. My last step is to the vet for some kitty downers.

~ Pat

Image courtesy of our-cats.com

Siouxsie: Well, Pat, you’re not alone in your situation. In fact, excessive vocalization has actually surpassed inappropriate elimination problems in the percentage of letters we receive from cat caretakers!

Thomas: There are several factors that influence a cat’s tendency to meow and howl: breed heritage, physical health, hormones, and anxiety.

Dahlia: Cats whose ancestors include Oriental breeds such as those in the Siamese and Burmese family generally tend to be more vocal than breeds such as Persians. Some people say that’s because Oriental cats are high-strung, but as a cat with some Bombay and Burmese heritage, I would like to state for the record that it’s only due to our superior intelligence!

Siouxsie: Some health issues can cause excessive noisiness. Hyperthyroidism and senior cognitive dysfunction, for example, cause sufferers to become much more vocal. If your cat has suddenly started meowing more, or the tone of his meowing has changed and taken on more urgency, we strongly recommend a trip to the vet to rule out any health problems.

Thomas: Female cats in heat will howl and call in order to advertise to males that they are ready to breed. Male cats can begin yowling and crying, too, when they detect a female cat in heat. The only solution for this problem is spaying or neutering.

Dahlia: The final problem, anxiety, is the most difficult to solve. We cats can become anxious and stressed over things that humans may not even consider, like the smell of dogs or other cats on the shoes of people who live in our home or come over to visit.

Siouxsie: Strange animals walking through our yard, or the sound of barking dogs from neighbors’ houses, can also freak us out.

Thomas: And as you’ve seen, Pat, if a cat is already vocalizing excessively because of anxiety, a huge stressor like the loss of a feline companion can send the behavior spiraling out of control.

Dahlia: So what’s a beleaguered cat caretaker to do?

Siouxsie: In a previous column we talked about steps you can take to de-stress your cat and avoid unwittingly providing positive reinforcement for your cat’s excessive vocalization.

Thomas: But it sounds to us like your cat’s anxiety and grief have reached a point that you need the help of a professional behaviorist.

Dahlia: Certified behaviorists have a body of knowledge that includes basic anatomy and physiology, counseling, behavior training, and special needs of cats. Generally a behaviorist will visit your home and do an assessment from the cat’s perspective. The individual can then counsel you on changes you can make that will decrease your cat’s stress level.

Siouxsie: Then the behaviorist will decide which training technique or techniques will work best to help your cat become less stressed. You and the behaviorist will work closely together, because you will take over the training when the behaviorist isn’t at your house. The success of behavior modification depends strongly on the willingness of the owner to follow the behaviorist’s recommendations and not stop the treatment too early.

Thomas: To find a behaviorist, ask your vet if he or she knows of any cat behaviorists in your area. If not, check the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, an organization that provides a set of competency standards its members are required to meet in order to receive accreditation. The IAABC also has a consultant locator tool on its website.

Dahlia: Vets have prescribed anti-anxiety drugs for cats with stress behaviors that their owners haven’t been able to modify with regular and persistent training.

Siouxsie: The keywords here are regular and persistent. In other words, no matter what training techniques you try, they’re not going to work if you only use them for a few days — or even a few weeks or a few months. It took years for your cat’s problem to reach this level of severity, and this isn’t like a TV show where a crisis is resolved in 45 minutes and everybody lives happily ever after.

Thomas: You’ve got to be willing to do the work, and do that work for as long as it takes to get your cat feeling better.

Dahlia: For what it’s worth, your cat is at least as miserable as you are. If you’ve ever suffered from an anxiety disorder yourself, you know that constant gnawing in your stomach or the overwhelming feelings of doom, and the trembling you just can’t stop no matter how much you try to “talk yourself down” to a normal state of mind.

Siouxsie: Anxiety shortens our lives because all of our body’s systems are on constant alert. No living creature, human or animal, can survive in that state of mind without harming our health.

Thomas: It’ll  be well worth the effort once Hogan is feeling happy and relaxed — and you can get a good night’s sleep.

Dahlia: We hope we’ve been able to help even a little. Please let us know how things go with Hogan.

Those of you who came looking for Paws and Effect some time within the last 24 hours probably noticed that we’d disappeared. What happened was a technical meltdown of the sort that no webmaster ever wants to deal with. But fortunately our Mama is very smart and she kept our site backed up. While she was in the process of resurrecting the site, Mama decided to do something she’d been planning to do for a long time: change hosting providers. So here we are, back online at our fresh, new hosting account.

You’ll probably notice that the site is running a lot faster now, and we hope that you’ll continue to enjoy Paws and Effect for many years to come. Please join us in purring and giving Mama lots of loving petties; it’s been a very hard 24 hours. Mama says she’s still got some tweaking to do in order to get everything exactly the way she wants it — but we’re just delighted to be back on the air again.

Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:

My cat is about 2 years old and recently got outside for a couple of hours (he’s an indoor cat). We found him under the neighbor’s house — there are always other cats going under there, and he sits at the window and watches them. He’s fixed, but a couple of days after we brought him back in the house, he started mating with everything. I know this is common because I have another male cat that does it all the time. But then, about a week later I saw him squatting on the floor and peeing — but not like what he would normally, just small short squirts. I rushed to put a towel under him, but I’m catching him doing it everywhere and now im finding pee spots all over the house. Please help me!

~ Rachelle

Cats typically mark their territory by spraying, as this cat is doing. Even neutered males and female cats can spray when they're stressed about territory. But cats can also mark territory by urinating or defecating. Photo courtesy of purrfectcatbehavior.com

Thomas: When he got outside, he found that all those other cats hanging out by your neighbor’s house are real and that their territory is very close to his. He may even have gotten in a fight with one of them.

Dahlia: Stressed cats often urinate to mark territory and help themselves feel secure in the knowledge that this is their place.

Siouxsie: The good news is that there are things you can do to help your cat feel less anxious.

Thomas: We’d recommend that you start by covering up the windows where your cat looks out to see the other cats in and around his yard. You can do this by putting cardboard in the bottom halves of the windows and moving furniture away from places that make it easy for him to look outside.

Dahlia: It’s not pretty, but you won’t have to do this forever — just until he settles down and stops peeing in the house.

Siouxsie: Next, you’re going to have to find all the pee spots and clean them up with an enzymatic cleaner. We recommend a product called Anti-Icky-Poo. Yes, the name sounds silly, but it really does work better than anything else we’ve found.

Thomas: You can find the urine stains by using a black light, which will cause the spots to glow. Use the enzymatic cleaner according to the directions, and even the faintest odors will disappear.

Dahlia: Whatever you do, don’t use ammonia-based products to clean up cat urine. It only makes the smell stronger.

Siouxsie: You can also try putting some deterrents on the area where your cat likes to pee. Plastic carpet runners placed upside down are uncomfortable but won’t cause injury.

Thomas: Then you’re going to have to de-stress your cat. We’ve successfully used a product called Feliway to solve territorial spraying and peeing problems. Feliway is a product made of synthetic “happy cat” pheromones, and it’s well-enough proven that many veterinarians use it in their cat exam rooms.

Dahlia: We recommend you purchase a diffuser and plug it in where your cat likes to hang out, and a bottle of the spray. Spray the Feliway by the windows and the places where he’s peed. But don’t spray it near his litter box.

Siouxsie: Feliway is available at pet stores, online, and at some veterinarians’ offices.

Thomas: As an extra added bonus, Feliway can also help cats cope with other stressors like moving house, going to the vet, or illnesses of animal friends and the important people in their lives.

Dahlia: Good luck, Rachelle. Please let us know how things turn out.