Monsters, Protesters And Other Cats
By Henry Askew
Copyright Henry Askew, 2011
Cover photo copyright Emily Askew, 2010
Smashwords Edition
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For my sister, Diane
Preface
This book presents scientifically sound advice on what owners can do to eliminate their cat’s behavior problems. Individual chapters are focused on urine spraying, failure to use the litter box for normal urination and/or defecation, fearfulness, several forms of aggression towards family members or other cats, excessive meowing, destructive scratching, pestering for attention or playing, sexually molesting other cats in the home, making problems when locked out of the bedroom, and tail biting and other odd or “neurotic” behaviors. Each chapter begins with an entertaining description of one of the author’s most humorous, touching or bizarre cases involving this type of problem.
About the author
Dr. Henry Askew is one of Europe's leading specialists in the treatment of dog and cat behavior problems. After obtaining his doctorate in experimental psychology, he authored or co-authored numerous scientific journal articles on learning experiments with animals. He has also published many articles on cat and dog behavior problems in veterinary journals and given numerous lectures and further education seminars for veterinarians in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic. His textbook Treatment of Behavior Problems in Dogs and Cats: A Guide for the Small Animal Veterinarian was published in English, Spanish, Russian and German.
Henry Askew's other pet behavior eBooks
Life With a Lovable Terrorist: How to Treat Dog Behavior Problems
Nothing In Life Is Free For Dogs Either: A Shake-Up/Shape-Up Program for Turning Any Dog Into a Great Dog Practically Overnight
Table of contents
Chapter 1 Problems With Your Cat?
Chapter 2 Spraying
Chapter 3 Failure to Use the Litter Box
Chapter 4 Fearful Cats
Chapter 5 Self-defensive Aggression Towards Human Beings
Chapter 6 Fear Aggression Between Cats Living in the Same Home
Chapter 7 Territorial Aggression
Chapter 8 Aggression Between Tomcats
Chapter 9 Attacks on Visitors
Chapter 10 Playful Aggression
Chapter 11 Cats That Use Aggression to Get Their Way
Chapter 12 Abnormal Aggression Caused by Medical Problems
Chapter 13 Pestering for Food, Playing, Attention etc.
Chapter 14 Self-mutilation and Other Odd Behavioral Habits
Chapter 15 Destructive Scratching
Chapter 16 Sexual Behavior Problems
Chapter 17 Mothers That Neglect or Kill Their Kittens
Chapter 18 Food-related Behavior Problems
Chapter 19 Hunting Behavior Problems
Chapter 20 Unfriendliness
Chapter 21 Understanding Your Cat
Chapter 1
Problems With Your Cat?
Cats are much easier to keep than dogs. You don't have to take them for walks. You don't have to obedience train them or housebreak them. You can leave them alone for long periods of time without problems. They are rarely aggressive towards human beings and usually less dangerous than dogs when they are. And they are the cleanest animals in the world. Or so we have always thought before we got a cat of our own and learned the hard way that things don't always go as smoothly as this.
"Cats? People have behavior problems with their cats?" I'm often amused by peoples' reactions when I mention that roughly a third of my pet behavior problem cases involve cats. That dogs are sometimes aggressive towards human beings and show many other serious behavior problems is common knowledge. But cats? Viciously attacking their owners or visitors in the home? Refusing to use their litter box? Spraying on the kitchen counter? Destroying sofas? Biting their own tails off? Keeping their owners awake all night with their constant pestering for playing and attention? Cats?
Cats have great press. And by in large they deserve it. Most of them are easy to keep and don't show the kinds of serious behavior problems that send people running to pet behavior problem specialists. But there is a dark side of the cat ownership story as well. Visit any animal shelter. Talk with any small animal veterinarian. Question any cat breeder. And it will soon be clear to you just how common serious cat behavior problems really are. Millions of pet cats are surrendered to animal shelters every year for behavior problems that make them impossible to keep in any normal family situation. Millions more are taken for a long ride in the car and dumped out at the side of some country road for the same reason. And nearly as many cats as dogs are put to sleep in animal shelters and veterinarians' practices every year because of serious behavior problems.
Problems, problems
Of course, there are problems - and problems. When a cat persists in urinating on your furniture and walls for so long that the stench is making your home unlivable, that's one thing. A serious behavior problem in anyone's book and the single most common cause for putting healthy cats to sleep. But no one has their cat killed because he brings home a dead mouse every few days, occasionally defecates on the carpet in front of the litter box, or scratches on the side of the couch once in a while. These are minor problems. And everyone has them with their cat from time to time.
How does your cat compare with other cats as far as major and minor behavior problems are concerned? To put your cat's behavior in perspective, read the below list of questions from a version of the checklist I always give to my clients - people who are having problems with their cat that are serious enough to pay a pet behavior problem specialist like myself to give them advice on what to do about them. People enjoy filling out the questionnaire. It helps them remember some problems they wouldn't have thought to mention, and it gives them a pretty complete picture of the whole gamut of problems other owners have with their cats. The last ten questions are different than the others. Some people laugh and everyone at least smiles when they answer them.
Does your cat: (owner instructed to mark “Often”, “Sometimes” or “Never”)
Fight with other cats?
Bite or scratch people during play?
Aggressively bite or scratch people?
React aggressively towards strangers?
React aggressively to being petted?
React aggressively when touched or reached for?
React aggressively when punished?
React overly fearfully?
Lick or scratch itself more than normal?
Urinate outside of the litter box?
Defecate outside of the litter box?
Pester for attention, playing, or food?
Meow too much?
Scratch on the furniture, carpets, walls etc.?
Eat house plants?
Act unusually restless?
Become overly excited or overactive?
Eat things like cloth or other non-food materials?
Show lack of appetite?
Fail to clean its fur properly?
Kill and bring home birds or mice?
Persistently try to sexually mount other cats?
Run away?
Show any odd behavioral habits?
Additional questions: (owner instructed to mark “Yes” or “No”)
Do you consider your cat to be a member of the family?
Can it sleep in family members' beds?
Is it allowed on any other pieces of furniture?
Do you take it with you on vacations?
Do you share food with it from the table?
Do you share snacks with it?
Do you talk to it at least once a day?
Do you talk to it about important matters at least once a month?
Do you have photographs of it?
Do you celebrate its birthday?
The last ten questions first. These are adapted from a survey Dr. Victoria Voith, one of the pioneers in the pet behavior problem field, gave to several hundred owners of cats without serious behavior problems. Among other things, these questions are designed to assess the degree to which owners anthropomorphize their cats - that is, view them and what they do in human terms as if they were children rather than cats. Dr. Voith reported that 89% of owners allow their cat to sleep in their bed, 95% allow them to climb on other pieces of furniture, 99% consider them to be family members, 97% talk to them every day, 58% talk to them about "important matters" at least once a month, 68% share snacks with them, 67% share food from the table with them, 91% have photos of them, and 39% even celebrate their birthday. You see, you're not alone. We all have the tendency to view and treat our cats if they were human children to some extent. It's no sin. It's normal and natural and need not cause the slightest problem.
But are the owners of problem cats different from other cat owners in this way? Do they overdo it when it comes to viewing and treating their cats like human beings and not cats? Is that why these people end up having serious problems with their cats? It doesn't look like it to we pet behavior problem specialists who have the strong impression that our clients are no different in this respect than owners of cats without any serious problems. My survey data confirm this impression. I translated these ten questions into German and gave them not only to a number of my clients but also to a comparable number of owners of "normal" cats - that is, cats without any kind of serious behavior problems. Comparing the answers given by the owners of problem-versus-normal cats, the differences were minor. Certainly much smaller than would be expected if viewing and treating cats like they were small furry, four-legged children was indeed the reason why some owners have more serious behavior problems with their cats than others.
Is my cat trying to tell me something?
Why can most cats be kept without problems while others must be put to sleep because they persist in destroying furniture, using their owners' beds as toilets, or injuring people badly enough to send them to the hospital? Besides the anthropomorphizing notion just considered - which doesn't hold water - the other popular theory is that cats which show serious behavior problems are suffering and the problem is basically their way of expressing this. Cats can't talk. They can't tell us what's wrong. So what other choice do they have but to do something fairly dramatic that gets our immediate and undivided attention like, for example, defecating on our pillow or scratching us in the eye to tell us just how dismal they find the conditions under which we are forcing them to live. The problem is therefore a kind of deliberate, perhaps even calculated demonstration. A public protest that expresses their displeasure in terms their owners have no difficulty understanding.
Although proponents of this protest theory may not present their views in this kind of loaded, implicitly critical way, they do in fact argue that the cat's behavior problem should be taken as sign that the cat is in some sense suffering. And by using the term "protest" as part of their explanation, they are obviously implying that the cat is "doing it on purpose" as well. That the cat is indeed trying to tell us something just as deliberately and directly as when it meows in front of the door to tell us to open up and let it in.
But scientifically speaking, this protest theory doesn't hold water either. It has two fatal flaws. The first is that cat behavior problems are assumed to be communicative - essentially, a cat's way of telling its owners something that it isn't able to express any other way. The implicit notion here is that when "protesting" by defecating outside of the litter box or attacking family members, the cat is intentionally trying to get some kind of message across to its owners that something about its present life circumstances is not to its liking. To get revenge perhaps - "If they think they can do that to me and get away with it .." - or to try and jolt its distracted, somewhat dense owners out of their complacency: "Maybe this will wake them up."
A century ago before the behavior of animals began to be studied scientifically, explaining animal behavior in human terms was common even among intellectuals and scientists. But not anymore. Not after a century of scientific research has taught us to appreciate what a mistake it is to try and account for animal behavior by attributing human motivations, human ways of perceiving the world, and human types of thinking processes to animals. Essentially, animal behavioral scientists are as sure as they can be that cats which spray urine in the home or attack their owners aren't doing this for their owners' benefit - to communicate something to them.
The second fatal flaw in the protest theory is that the behavior problem should be taken as an indication that the cat is suffering under its present living conditions. That it doesn't have something it wants or needs. Or that it is being treated in some way - or exposed to something - that it finds unpleasant, stressful or frightening. Although this can sometimes be the case as when, for example, a fearful cat bites a toddler who treats it too roughly, this is the exception not the rule. In fact, most serious problem cases involve cats that aren't suffering in any detectable way. They don't seem to be nervous or anxious or stressed at all. Quite the opposite. They seem relaxed and basically contented with their lives. Their home environment and their owners seem optimal and indistinguishable from those of other cats. And there is no sign at all that they are being subjected to unpleasant, stressful or frightening living conditions. In short, they seem to have everything any cat needs to live a happy, healthy life.
What's the problem then?
Usually nothing serious or nothing at all. At least as far as the cat itself is concerned. For it's the owner and not the cat who has the problem. It's the owner and not the cat who is suffering. And it is helping owners solve their problem with their cat which is what we behavior problem specialists do for a living. Essentially, most problem cats don't have any problems at all. They’re fine. Just doing what comes naturally and not at all a problem for them. But they don't live alone or in a group of cats. They live in a human family in a human-style home where their version of doing what comes naturally just doesn't fit in. To a cat, it probably makes little difference whether it sharpens its claws on a tree trunk, the scratching post we provide it with, or our expensive sofa. They all work fine as far as helping to remove the old claw sheath and expose the new, sharper claw material underneath. And that's the main thing to the cat. The same goes for using the litter box. The litter box with its loose, dirt-like litter was perfect place for the cat to urinate at the beginning. But during a period where a bladder infection made urinating in the box painful, the cat tried out a few other possibilities like urinating on our carpets or bed and finally found a place - after the few days it took to for the infection to heal itself - where things seemed to work better. No pain. Urination without problems. Great. At least from the cat's perspective. But certainly not from ours. For us the difference between scratching post and sofa or between litter box and our bed is critical. So much so that it may really and truly be a matter of life and death - for our cat!
Appreciating that the problems your cat has been making do not in fact indicate that it is suffering, being exposed to substandard or unpleasant living conditions, or lacks something it needs is not only a critical first step in understanding why it is really making problems, it is also important in understanding why one of the main implications of the popular theory that behavior problems are "a cat's way of telling its owners that it's unhappy or discontented" should be dismissed as so much unscientific nonsense. Namely, the claim that your cat is suffering is pointing the finger at you. For being too insensitive, selfish or dense to even know how to treat a cat properly!
I see this all the time with my clients. Most of them feel guilty that their cat is behaving the way it is. Exactly what they have been doing wrong, they don't know. But implicitly convinced that the problem indicates that their cat must be unhappy in some way, owners feel sure that they are responsible. That they have been making some mistake or unintentionally mistreating their cat in some way. Consequently, before my house call they have tried all kinds of things to improve the cat's living conditions. Spending more time with it. Talking to it, petting it, or playing with it more. Letting it go outside more often. Feeding it gourmet meals. Basically doing anything and everything they can think of to improve what is apparently the dismal life they are forcing it to live.
But of course, none of these things help at all. Except for the minority of cases where a cat is really and truly suffering, owners haven't done anything wrong at all. They have been treating their cat exactly like owners whose cats don't show any behavior problems. Its living conditions aren't substandard or stressful or inadequate. They are optimal. Indeed, the cat is just as satisfied with its life as any other cat and there is no reason at all for owners to feel guilty about anything.
Cat behavior problems are problems because they represent problems for you - not your cat. In most cases, the cat is okay. And there is nothing wrong with its living conditions either. Everything is okay as far as you are concerned too. You are not doing anything wrong. You are giving your cat everything cats need to live healthy, happy lives. You haven't been mistreating it or making any crucial mistakes at all. So relax. Stop blaming yourself. For in most cases, the problem is not your fault at all.
Why some cats don't do things our way?
From the point of view of understanding all of the various types of cat problem behaviors listed in the questionnaire, this is really the question that needs answering. In all but a small minority of cases, there is nothing wrong with the cat at all. It is behaving normally and is normal in every way. But the problem is that some forms of normal cat behavior may represent problems for us, their owners. In the last analysis, most pet behavior problems involve an element of incompatibility between the animal's normal and natural behavior on the one hand, and the requirements of our family and home situations on the other. Outdoors, a cat can scratch, spray, and defecate anywhere it likes. But not in our homes. Here there are certain rules about where such things must be done: scratching on the scratching post and eliminating in the litter box are allowed, but scratching or eliminating on the carpets aren't. Accordingly, by providing cats with scratching posts and litter boxes that most cats instinctively find attractive for scratching and elimination respectively, we essentially stack the deck so that the cat will choose to play by our rules of its own accord. It doesn't always work, however. Some cats make choices of where to scratch or eliminate that we don't like - and indeed can't live with.
Why are some cats nonconformists? Why do they sometimes make different "choices" than most other cats? There are many reasons and indeed different reasons for the different types of behavior problems discussed in detail in subsequent chapters. But for the moment, the important point is this: the problem cat usually doesn't have any kind of problem that needs to be "treated" in the sense that one treats a medical disorder. For one reason or another, it has a tendency to perform one of its species' normal behaviors in ways that don't confirm to the unwritten rules of life in a modern human family. It has become a misfit. It is no longer doing things our way for some reason. And to solve the problem you have with your cat, you need to know what you can do to encourage it to conform again and, therefore, stop making problems.
Chapter 2
Spraying
Purzel
This 10-year-old castrated male house cat had been spraying urine on the Holbachs' walls, sofa and table legs practically every day for 6 years. As summarized in my case notes, my first impression of the Holbachs' apartment says it all: "Unbelievable! Walls streaked with urine stains from top of tall cupboards down to floor in living room and hall. Some upholstered furniture stained. Carpets badly stained around base of walls in most rooms. Smells like a public toilet!" Cat lovers to the core, the Holbachs had six other cats besides Purzel, their bookshelves were filled with cat statuettes, and the living room walls were plastered with photos of at least 50 or 60 cats of every conceivable description. Although I would have been shocked and wondered how people could possibly live like this back when I started giving pet owners advice years ago, after seeing as many severe cases as I have since then I knew the answer already. The Holbachs loved Purzel as much as other people love their own children and they wouldn't part with him for the world. If they had any say about it, that is. Which is why they called me. They could live with the stench but not their neighbors. Threatened with eviction from the only apartment their meager pensions could afford, Mr. and Mrs. Holbach had to either solve the problem quickly or give Purzel away to some institution unknown to me which they referred to as "the old animals' home". Their past approaches to trying to solve the problem were limited to treating Purzel better than they did already - which wasn't easy given that they treated all their cats like visiting royalty - and providing Purzel with a grubby old towel on the floor in a corner of the bathroom that he could spray on to his heart's content. While most owners rely heavily on punishment to try to control the problem, they hadn't because, as Mrs. Holbach explained, "it disturbs Purzel's appetite." Applying repellent chemicals to Purzel's favorite spraying sites, another common but usually ineffective approach, was out of the question because of Mrs. Holbach's asthma. Since Purzel marked on too many places to do something to the sites that would prevent spraying, I recommended drug therapy carried out by their veterinarian, which solved the problem entirely. Aside from that first astonishing sight of the devastated apartment, the other thing that sticks in my mind about this case was the Holbachs' delight - I can only call it that - at having a real-life, flesh-and-blood American in their home. Mr. Holbach particularly admired the American government's readiness to back up its principles with military might and, when contrasting it with the German government's policy of avoiding military involvement, made some comment like "if we ever get invaded, the old women will have to man the barricades.” Although most Germans like Americans, the Holbachs were an example of clients I occasionally run into who seem to feel that Americans are superior beings from another, far better planet than theirs. In their world view, facts like that we Americans did our best to exterminate the Native American population, are still executing people every year, and are seemingly much less willing or capable than the Germans of coping with contemporary poverty, drug, weapons, environmental, and health insurance problems apparently don't count.
Spraying is the common term for urine marking - that is, urinating on objects to give them an odor which communicates something to other cats. There are several possibilities of what exactly cats communicate with their urine: their individual identity, when they last passed by the marked location, whether they are male or female, or whether females are receptive or not for mating. Tomcats spray much more commonly in the home than females. However, the popular notion that the problem is only shown by males is erroneous. There are statistics indicating that the percentage of castrated females which at least occasionally spray in the home may be as high as 5%. Pet behavior problem specialists throughout the world agree that urine marking is the most common serious cat behavior problem of all with millions of cats being euthanized because of it every year.
Common symptoms of urine marking
- Most cats spray after first sniffing some object or surface about a foot or so above the floor, and then turning around and directing a brief stream of urine towards it while standing with their tail pointing straight upwards and perhaps twitching at the tip.
- Most cats mark repeatedly at only a few key objects or locations in the home.
- Cat that spray continue to use the litter box for normal urination - and squat when they do so.
- The amount of urine sprayed on objects or walls is often but certainly not always small. Some cats spray just as much urine as when they squat to urinate in the litter box.
- Somewhere around 40% of cats that urine mark in the home are described by their owners as being somewhat nervous individuals compared to other cats.
- Cats sometimes urine mark objects like shoes, items of clothing, or plastic bags that are lying on the floor. When they do this, they squat just like they do when urinating in the litter box.