Combating Common Cat Behavioral Issues

Aggression

Most types can be caused by the following:

• fear-at the vet, meeting a new pet or person, etc; includes redirecting to nearby people or animals. Best solved with anti-anxiety techniques and increased playtime.

• play/predatory-when normal cat behaviors become too aggressive. Best solved by never playing rough with your cat, and encouraging playtime with indirect interactions (using toys, not your hands).

• petting-cats can become easily overstimulated. Best solved by learning to avoid your cat's triggers (touching belly, petting longer than 30 seconds, etc.) and reading its body language, encouraging more playtime, and utilizing anti-anxiety techniques.

Scratching

As declawing (amputating the ends of the fingers/toes) of cats is not only falling out of favor but becoming illegal, scratching is going to be a more common problem. Scratching is a normal behavior that allows cats to stretch, mark their territory, and groom their claws, so there is really no way to make your cat stop scratching. Frequently trimming your cat's claws can cut down on the destruction, and applying nail caps provides almost complete protection. Using feliscratch can redirect scratching onto appropriate scratching posts.

Hiding

Usually the result of a lack of confidence and/or feeling of fear. Best addressed by utilizing anti-anxiety techniques, encouraging playtime, and adding more perches/trees and hiding spots in areas that you want your cat to hang out in.

Litter-box problems

Urinating or defecating outside of the litter-box is most commonly related to a medical issue, and this should not be dismissed as a behavioral problem until a veterinarian has physically examined your cat and appropriate diagnostics and/or treatments have been performed. If your cat is healthy and a behavioral problem has been diagnosed, your cat likely has one or more problems with the following:

• Changes to your household that have increased stress (new human/pet roommate, nearby construction, moved furniture around, etc)

• Litter type-crystals vs pellets vs clumping vs scented, etc.

• Litter-box type-covered vs non-covered vs top entrance vs side entrance vs small vs big, etc.

• Litter-box location-basement vs bathroom vs bedroom and/or in a corner, against a wall, in the middle of the room, etc.

• # of litter-boxes-good rule of thumb is to have one more litter-box than the number of cats in your household

• Cleanliness-cats are very clean creatures and boxes should ideally be scooped at least daily or every other day. Plus, it is important to be monitoring your cat's urination and defecation behaviors to have a better understanding if they are healthy and acting normally or not.

The best way to solve behavioral box issues by giving your cat options, monitoring their behaviors, evaluating your cat's preferences, and reducing stress with anti-anxiety techniques and by transitioning changes slowly. Surprisingly (or not), your cat's bathroom preferences are likely not aligned with how you would prefer them. Sometimes we can't give our cats exactly what they want because of the size or arrangement of our home, or for other reasons, and in that case all we can do is try to compromise by meeting in the middle. For example, I learned by experimenting that while I prefer my cats' one litter-box to be covered in the corner of my bathroom with a scented, clumping litter, my two cats prefer at least 2 uncovered litter boxes (they urinate in one and defecate in the other) with unscented clumping litter and placed away from corners or walls in my bedroom. We compromised by having 2 uncovered litter-boxes with unscented clumping litter, one is in the corner of the bathroom and the other is in the bedroom away from the corners. As you can see, me and my cats had to compromise, but we were able to come to conclusions that keep us both happy, which is the case for most families with cats.

*Many behavioral changes can be caused by medical issues, if your pet is acting abnormally in any way it is always best to consult with your veterinarian.

#behavior #training #cat #manners #health