problem cat,need advice/ help

christinadublin

I bought a Oriental cat approx two years ago. I absolutely adore her but am having some behavioural problems with her and am at a loss at what to do and badly need advice/help.

She has always been a biter. She never gives a warning as too when she might turn. I thought when I first met her and she bit me that she would grow out of this but never has. She will even walk up to guests and bite them without any hesitation and run away, or she may be calmly sitting on my lap and bite me while I am petting her.

I now have a seven month old daughter and her behaviour has gotten worse. Since July she has repeatedly soiled various parts of the apartment. She has favoured our couch which we have had to replace because its beyond saving now. She seems to only soil the apartment during the night when we are all asleep.

I am at home all day everyday and put aside time during the day and evening to play fetch and her other favourite games. The baby has her own room so she sleeps with me every night and has hours of time to cuddle on my lap. I have even bought a few Feliway plug ins for around the apartment. I have taken her to the vet to get checked out and she is in perfect health.

Despite all my best efforts She continues to bite and soil. I am upest with the idea that we will have to give her away as she is part of the family but I really don't know what to do. Is there any advice out there?

anniehoo

Has she been medically checked recently just to rule out any internal issues that might be causing the soiling problems?

When she bites, how do you react? Yell, scold,do nothing? If it was my cat doing that as soon as they bite, a sharp "hsssssssst no!!" from me, followed by calmly removing her from the situation and placing her in another room for a short period. Cats are notoriously stubborn, but if she learns that by biting she gets scolded, removed from the area and ignored for a short time she might understand.

Ive often heard that Feliway can be effective for stress in cats. I think as a breed they are "highly strung" anyway so if you're matching her stress for stress it could just be escalating things. Keep calm and consistent with discipling her and see how you get on. Also have you more than one litter tray in the house?My rule is 2 per cat if possible.

SheFiend

Does the cat get time outside to exercise? Or is she kept in the apartment ?

angry kitten

My brothers cat was part oriental and he had that habit. But we knew when he stopped purring it was time to be wary. Feliway does work brilliantly. It can take about a week to notice the effects. Puss is probably stressed about not being the only child as well.

sambuka41

anniehoo wrote: »

Has she been medically checked recently just to rule out any internal issues that might be causing the soiling problems?

When she bites, how do you react? Yell, scold,do nothing? If it was my cat doing that as soon as they bite, a sharp "hsssssssst no!!" from me, followed by calmly removing her from the situation and placing her in another room for a short period. Cats are notoriously stubborn, but if she learns that by biting she gets scolded, removed from the area and ignored for a short time she might understand.

This is really good advice, in general cats love attention so take that away from them and they learn quick enough. Also pay attention to her body language, Jack is my first cat and it took me a while to really understand his communications. Now I know a bit better (they are always a bit of a mystery:p) if his tail is flicking he gets no love or petting, no matter how much he makes out like he wants his belly rubbed, he doesn't,he wants to play (bite and scratch).

My guy also soiled everywhere for a while but I realised he only done it after I cleaned the house (hoovered, washed floors) this really upset him. So I locked him out when I cleaned and it stopped. Now when he sees me start cleaning he'll leave the room himself. It doesn't upset him anymore.

Ophiopogon

Sounds a lot like my cat to be honest.

I never did use the felliway in the end but the one thing I understand about it is to use it long term. Apperently it can take up to a month to have a full effect.

Regarding the soiling...I found I reduced the risk of soiling by not feeding her too late...no food after 7/8. I think it prob had something to do with stess but by not feeding her late it cut out about 90% of this prob.

She was a bit of a biter in her youth but as she only seem to bite if you petted her a certain way. She seemed to have a bit of a blind spot that if you didn't let her know your hand was coming she'd take a chunk out of it. We were well use to her but I never let guests near her.

The Sweeper

Very complicated problem.

If she's been vet-checked that's good, but did the vet check her thyroid function? Sometimes an underactive or overactive thyroid can cause behavioural problems (in both cats and dogs).

The biting and the soiling are generally not signs of a particularly happy cat.

From my own experience, I have a female oriental cross called Turbo Diesel, because she can go from sleep to all out savage bitch in nine seconds or less. She'll be four years old this year and she has *always* been like this. For the first year or more we tried admonishing her or pushing her away when she bit us, and it got really bad - we tried hissing, saying no, pushing her away, clapping our hands and standing up - I even tried flicking her (not hitting her) but flicking her (gently) in the forehead (because at this stage she was biting us three or four times a day). She savaged my mother in law at one point (due to how she was being handled).

Turbo made me a student of feline body language, as sambuka41 points out above. There is almost always a warning or a sign, you just need to learn to read them. Positioning of ears. tail and head are all very important in cat communication. Additionally, I stopped giving out to Turbo Diesel completely. If she went for me, I'd give her a treat and speak in a soothing voice. (And then go put savlon on my scratches. :-/ ) Sounds crazy, but it helped to calm her down - she was no longer living in anticipation that we'd have a spat. Sometimes I think she bit me just to get the first strike in because she was convinced, because of my consistent reaction, that she and I would always come to loggerheads.

There are also some body rules with Turbo - stroke her head, and stroke her chin, all parts of her face, and her ears. Touch her tummy only when invited, and then with great caution. Do not touch any other part of her or she'll take about 90 seconds to work herself up to savaging you. Still her behaviour has modified - if she's getting a tummy rub and she's had enough, she'll grab your hand, but if you freeze she goes no further. She may even lick your hand, but it's most sensible to totally withdraw at that point no matter how many further invitations you appear to be getting.

On the soiling, litter box problems can be difficult to fix.

When you say 'soiling' I'd bet you mostly mean she's peeing on your couch. Your cat is doing this because she feels she doesn't have her own space or position in the house and she's trying to claim it - that's not really all that's going on, but it's the best way I can explain it. The arrival of your child is a massive upheaval and the cat is unsure of her rank and place, so at night she heads to the most central area of the house, the couch, where everyone congregates, and she pees on it to let everybody know it's hers (or even to challenge the fact that it's yours and the baby's.)

I shut my cats in their own room at night. It might sound cruel, but they go in there happily because they're fed in there last thing. In they trot for a dish of raw meat, miaowing and happy. They're put to bed last thing before we go to bed, so the house outside the closed door is silent and dark. First thing in the morning when we're up, we let them back out of that room and the day begins. It's a bit like the notion behind crating a dog - it's not punishment, it's creating a safe cave for them, but it has the added bonus of them not wrecking your house while you're asleep. If you have one cat they may protest being shut away, but if you feed them while you're putting them in there, and leave a radio on low in that room, or a TV, you create a companionable atmosphere which will make them happier.

I'd recommend giving the cat a quiet space in the house which is hers. Use a baby gate, and raise it off the floor by six or eight inches to make sure the cat can get under quickly but your child still can't get through into whatever room you're going to make the quiet space one your child starts toddling. Try putting a cat tree in the quiet space, with a view out a window. Put food, water and litter trays all in that space (with enough distance from each other for hygiene). If the room is carpeted, buy a cheap lino off the roll at a hardware store and cut a square for the litter tray and a square for the food and one for the water.

Clean the litter tray fastidiously - I scoop crap out of my trays twice daily, morning and night, while I'm feeding the cats. It becomes part of that routine - lay out a dish of food, scoop up a pile of crap. Having one room that's theirs lets me keep their stuff out of the rest of my house. They also never soil the rest of my house (but if DH leaves an empty but unwashed litter tray in the 50-litre laundry sink, then sure enough someone will crap in it, but really can I blame them for that?) They'll retreat into their room when they want some down time, and the baby gate keeps my 30kg bull arab cross out of their hair. I know it works, because if they ever get a scare or if strange people come to the house, they retreat to their room because they recognise it as their safe space.

Use an enzyme cleaner to clean up any area within the house where the cat has soiled if they can still smell residual urine they'll return to the toilet spot.

Continue the Feliway and try Rescue Remedy, which is a blend of herbs designed to help soothe and calm your cat (though I'm not convinced that the efficacy doesn't just come from the 40% proof brandy base used as a preservative for the mimulus and star of bethlehem or whatever, it does work - couple of drops on each front paw and rub a drop or two into the skin behind each ear).

Investigate toys like Da Bird, which is a bit like a feathery badminton shuttlecock on the end of a string which is attached to about 90cm of flexible fibreglass wand that you hold. The toy flutters and spins through the air like a bird, and cats can get into some seriously impressive gymnastics chasing it. 15 minutes (or more) of play a day with that when your child is sleeping or gone to bed at night will help wear your cat right out.

The ultimate goal of changing your cat's behaviour is to try and get her to chill out. Did you ever look at her and think 'I wish she'd calm down'? If you can find the trick to helping her calm down, it'll help you out. Feliway, rescue remedy, quiet time, safe space, good food, clean litter tray, playful interaction - that can all help.

There's even more to it than that - creation of high spaces (you might have to relax your rules on where the cat's allowed on the furniture), giving of calming signals (yawning obviously, looking away, making no eye contact) and so on but it's a lot to take on in one post on the interweb, so I'll leave it there!

christinadublin

Thanks to everyone for your advice and suggestions. I've had a good think about the problem and some times just writing things down makes it seem easier to deal with and see the solution.

I did get the vet to give her a full check up and everything was fine with her so I knew her health wasn't the problem.

I think the key to her is she is such a needy cat and is so used to been my shadow.
I have tried to keep her out of my daughters bedroom because I don't want her to get into the crib or changing station and all the advice from relatives was keep the cat out of the babys room. This is when she gets stressed when I am out of her reach and most likely the cause of the night time soiling. I'm going to start letting her in the nursery only when I'm in there and keep an eye on her. I would spend a good bit of time in the evenings settling my daughter and getting her ready for bed. This is when she really gives off and meows loudly at the door so my husband would take her into the sitting room with him and lock her in there with him so the baby has a chance to fall asleep. Last night I tried out my theory and not a peep out of her and during the night she didn't soil anywhere.
I also put out an extra litter box just in case but lack of boxes was never really the problem I think.

In regards to her biting its good to know that she may have a trigger. I think its not necessarily a particular spot but more likely she gets over excited and can't handle the attention. So I'm going to back off with giving her too much affection. She has bitten me three times since my original post and every time I wasn't petting her and it was totally out of the blue but it was more of a nip rather than a bite.

In just one day she has meowed only a hand full of times and actually seems a little bit happier. I'm going to give her a month and see if things are better. If they haven't improved and she still seems unhappy I will find a good home for her because it would be unfair of me to keep her. I feel more hopeful that things will get better because I would be heart broken to have to give her away.