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Should I get rid of my cat?
tsplitter
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
A few years ago, my brother gave me a stray kitten, which has grown up to be quite a monster. While this cat does seem to show affection to me in its own way, it also likes to attack people, other peoples' pets, and pees on everything, even though he has a well kept litter box and is able to go outside. Because of this, the rest of my family fears encountering him, and I am losing my patience with him as well. I would like to see him leave, but I know that since no one would want such a cat, he would end up in an animal shelter (where he would most likely be euthanized). I really don't know what to do here.
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Have you talked to a vet at all about his behaviors? They might have some good suggestions for how to settle him down. Actually, my old cat, God rest his soul, used to go nuts on Friskies wet food, but was absolutely fine when we switched him to Whiskas.
I'm sorry, guess it would actually be spraying. Also, he is neutered. I went to a vet once, and did everything she said to do, but it has not calmed him down at all.
Shitty... Sorry, hopefully someone has a miracle cure for a cat with a somewhat shitty attitude.
I pet him I let him play with toys. I have never done anything to hurt or scare him. I would like to think I did not instigate this behavior.
I didn't mean to suggest abuse on your part. Let me try an example.
My friend's family has a dog. Little yappy thing. Every so often it will stand in the kitchen and bark loudly and generally be a pain in the ass, and eventually the mom will get up and give it a treat to shut him up. Sure, it takes care of the noise for the time being, but the dog is essentially being trained to be a pain. The point is that you should consider when reacting to your cat's misbehavior how he will interpret your actions.
Oh, well, I did try some things on the internet for dealing a with a cat being bad such as using a squirt bottle, but he just waits for me to put the bottle down then continues his escapades.
I have come upon some extra money recently and I will see if the local pet store has some Feliway.
How old is he now? Cats largely won't calm down and stop acting like kittens until they're two or three years old.
Does he spray in particular spots? Because that will make it easier to solve.
If you decide you can't live with him any more, man up and take him to the vet yourself to have him euthanized. A cat who sprays everywhere is going to get put down at the animal shelter, or else someone will adopt him, find out he sprays, and dump him right back at the shelter. And he will die frightened in a strange environment, surrounded by strangers.
Seriously. This forum seems like it's been chock full of "I can't handle my cat where should I dump it/give it away/kill it at" questions lately. What is wrong with people? :?
I implore you to exhaust ALL your options before even thinking about getting rid of the cat. It's not a busted 360, it's a living, breathing, creature.
Getting rid of him has been the general consensus of the non-forum people I have asked, but it seems they are as clueless about this as I am. I am glad I came here before I did something stupid.
Some animals are just jerks.
But yeah, seriously exhaust all your options. I think with cats especially, older ones are harder for people to take in afterwards, mainly cause they lose a lot of their Awww factor when they grow.
-Hormones: Intact males spray to mark territory/attract females.
-Habit: If your male was Intact for a long while, and was only neutered later, spraying most likely became a learned behavior/habit.
-Insecurity: Both Intact and neutered males will spray if they feel insecure, if another cat/baby/spouse seems to be creeping into their territory and influence.
-Litter Box: Changing litters changes the smell of a litter box, which can usually trigger a spraying fit for the insecurity reasons. Try to stick with the same brand.
Being an indoor/outdoor cat (I'm guessing from your post) would make him much more likely to spray than an indoor, though that's not always a sure thing.
Concerning most of your problems, my guess would be your cat suffers from insecurity issues. Violence to the point of human fear is not common in cats, and must be triggered by something. Being an outdoor cat, he likely has a lot of hostile environment issues, such as other neighborhood cats that are making him more likely to be violent and feel the need to protect and mark his territory.
You can correct these behaviors, but it will be time consuming and require a lot of understanding on your part. If he has developed these habits, it would be because you allowed them to develop, willing or otherwise. Killing the cat because of these habits would, in my opinion, be the lest responsible thing you could do.
Corrective actions work, but with a cat it takes time. They can absolutely be trained an action or a non-action in a month if you are consistent and clear about your desires. If he howls a bunch, ignore him. When he is quiet, lavish him with whatever he likes the most (attention, brushing, playing, etc). Corrective water spray works, but you have to be absolutely quick about it. You can't just come home, see he's sprayed, and hit him with water. It has to be within 30 seconds of the action or he will have no clue what you are punishing him for.
Lets say he jumps on a counter and you don't allow that. You spray him immediately while he is on the counter. The same the next time, and the next time. Never ever "let it slide," or you will loose everything you have worked towards. For spraying correction, the best thing you can do is quickly and immediately clean it up with a pet-cleaning agent or deodorizer. If the smell, no matter how faint, is still there, he will associate spraying with that location. If possible, toss away items that can't be cleaned thoroughly after spraying.
And the most important thing you can do is this: Be consistant. Go out and come home at consistant times. Feed him regularly at the same time every monring and night. Change his box every day at the same time. Play with him and groom him at the same time every evening. The more consistant you are, the happier your cat will be. Cats are like boring old people. They like every day to be the exact same.
That's part of the reason so many old people have cats, I would imagine.
In any case, good luck! And for pity's sake, don't shelter kill the cat. My sister works at one and ever since the recession started they have been putting down 12 to 20 a day. Sadly, thats only about a third more than their usual amount. Don't add to that number.
This is excellent advice. I did something similar with my cat when he started spraying. We also sprayed the area where he peed with Feliway (after cleaning it as thoroughly as we could).
But you will have to be very patient, and very thorough.
One thing that we also did (that cat was also very aggressive) was get a second cat. Funnily enough, the new kitten quickly established dominance over the older cat. The two quickly bonded, with Oscar (the kitten) quickly becoming a "play-target" for Koru's aggression.
Sadly, Koru was hit by a car 2 years after we got Oscar. But he was a much calmer cat who was much free-er with his affections and more forgiving of strangers
This isn't something I'd recommend without a lot of thought though. Just thought I'd tell my experiences with a similar kitty.
Good luck!
I'm a cat lover and a vegetarian, and yet I have little sympathy for cats who can't behave. If you've tried rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior and he still acts out, F him.
Yeah but yippy dogs are easy to fix.
You put a shock collar on them ONCE. They get zapped ONCE, maybe twice. And then they learn. After that you just put the collar on them turned off when you don't want them to bark. Doesn't need the batteries, they don't know it's not on. They just know they're wearing it and that it's not wise to bark when they're wearing it.
That's why we love them. Because they learn really, really fast. Cats on the other hand...
A cat is not a human being. A cat cannot act with malice. The cat cannot understand that he is risking death by behaving in the way that is only natural to him. A cat is also not a toy, to be used and discarded as is convenient.
this applies to all pets, really.
i am sick and tired of hearing about people who treat their pets like objects of entertainment and nothing more. they are living beings. you people who think they're just dumb things for the amusement of humans are the ones who need to be slaughtered, not the pets.
i once knew a mother and her young son who used to hit stray dogs that were roaming the park near my house. one day i saw them hurl a stick at one of the dogs, so hungry it could barely walk, and it hit the dog on the head. the dog gave this most pitiful whine. i saw red. picked up the stick and hurled it at the mother. got her right in the head, gave her a huge swelling and a cut. felt so good to do it. bitch deserved it.
i don't recommend doing that though. animal cruelty is just one of the few things that makes me truly murderously angry.
edit: sorry i guess this post wasn't very helpful to the OP but you got a ton of good advice already
This, so much. I think a lot of people don't understand that cat training is necessarily different from dog training. Cats don't have an inborn pack mentality, and thus aren't genetically driven to please you. They do not generally respond well to punishment... they don't think they're being bad, but that you're being mean and scary. They do respond well to positive reinforcement provided that the positive reinforcement is something that is pleasing to that particular cat. "Good kitty!" is generally not pleasing enough to the cat. Some people think this means that cats are selfish creatures, but that's anthropomorphizing. A cat is a cat, and it's not the poor cat's fault that it's a cat.
When a cat is exhibiting behaviours you don't like, it could be that the cat is doing something naturally catlike and that you need to give the cat a way to perform its natural behaviours that isn't destructive or disruptive to the household. It could also mean that the cat is unhappy about something and is trying to communicate that unhappiness to you. In the case of cats exhibiting aggressive behaviour towards humans, it's usually the latter. The behaviour can be stopped by either fixing the problem (if it's something fixable, like a litterbox situation or a lack of routine for the cat) or slowly and patiently getting the cat used to whatever it doesn't like by associating that thing/person with a pleasant experience.
There are good guides to working with cats in this way, but they can be hard to find (I know, because I couldn't find a solution to my own cat's behaviour problems with a simple net search or reading a standard cat ownership guide). That's why I recommend Cats International, because they've done the work of finding that information and can pass it on to you.
That or it's a question of how specifically they learn. Dogs seem to think in broad generalizations... if you teach them to not jump on the couch for example, the lesson seems to sink in for all couch and chair shaped objects.
Whereas cats... if you get a cat to understand they can't scratch the couch, and then you replace the couch, they'll scratch the new one because you didn't teach them not to scratch *that particular couch*.
They think like lawyers.
My childhood cat was outside anytime the family was not around, and at night. He was a sweet and lovable well-trained cat with no particular behaviour problems, and lived to be extremely old (for a cat). That was just the way my family treated cats - kitty litter seemed like a waste of money when the ground wasn't frozen!
There is no one, true way of keeping cats. Cats can be very happy living mostly outdoors.
Outside cats are very common in the UK. In the US, people look at you as if you suggested keeping a hamster tied on a string in your back garden. In the UK, if you suggested keeping a cat indoors all the time, people would frown and say "Poor thing".
Cultural differences, man.
That and putting an overly aggressive animal on the street with no supervision where it could attack someone else's pet or someone else is a great way to get sued.
Very true. My cat knows goddamn well what the squirt bottle is, and what he's not supposed to do to risk the squirt bottle. Doesn't mean he won't scratch the couch anyway, and then bolt from the room the very instant my hand moves for the bottle.
Well I hope you have adopted every single cat from every local animal shelter then. Otherwise you clearly aren't doing enough for cats.
Me - when given the choice between giving a loving home to a cat who knows how or can be taught how to be a house cat, and living in an apartment covered in urine - well, I'd go with the house cat every time. In both cases, you're giving a home to a cat who needs one and would otherwise die miserable and lonely in a shelter. Only in the second case, your quality of life deteriorates considerably.
At any rate, I talk tough, but in reality I don't practice what I preach. I recently moved, and one of the contributing factors was the fact that my old apartment had wall to wall carpeting, and one of my cats took to peeing outside the box. Could not train her out of it and didn't have the heart to get rid of her. She doesn't do it in my new apartment with hardwood floors, thank god.
If you train up your first cat wrong, the second is also likely to be problematic, since training a cat is a skill. Caring for cats is a responsibility on the pet owner, not the cat.
So cats don't have personalities of their own? I beg to differ. I've had about 10 cats in my life. All but 3 of them were normal and well-adjusted. One had distemper when he was a kitten and it totally wrecked him, after that he would pee/spray wherever he wanted even though he was neutered. Another was a street cat we took in as an adult cat. He's still a street cat at heart, and wants to be free, gets into any food we don't keep locked up, etc. The third one is the one who got it into her head to pee on the carpet outside the litter box and simply would not un-learn that little trick. But I guess it's all my fault?
It's easy for people to say "shame on you" for thinking twice about keeping a cat around who pees everywhere, but I don't see anyone volunteering to take this cat. Hey, I can't believe people actually *eat* animals with brains 10 times the size of a cat's, and support the industry that keeps them locked up and barely able to move from when they're born til they're slaughtered for food, but I don't preach to people about it. Euthanizing a cat that can't be taught so you can save another well-behaved cat is a nonexistent crime in the grand scheme of things.
Large brain size doesn't necessarily mean intelligence. Bigger animals tend to have bigger brains. A cat does not seem particularly stupider than a cow.