How to discipline my cat from spraying

McBoredFace

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Hi, my name is Brooke and I’m new to this forum and this is my first post! So my bf has 2 cats. Both not fixed. One male named Deutch about 14 and one female named Fat Fat (we thought she was fat but turns out she’s 12.8 pounds and isn’t fat at all. Just a big girl with a pouch and LOTS extra skin. She’s our big blob<3) about 11. I was told by my bf and his mother they used to get along very well until they got pregnant and they kept one of the cats. Suddenly the baby cat and Deutch started ganging up on Fat Fat. It got so bad that they had to move Fat fat upstairs into my boyfriend’s room away from the two. Later on the baby cat got sick and passed away. They still keep Deutch and Fat separated because he will still try to sneak upstairs and attack her or try to “aggressively romance” her AND the big problem is he sprays upstairs and sometimes downstairs. They put a gate up on the stairs because Deutch is VERY skittish and terrified of noises and the gate. But out of no where, I’m talking YEARS later and about 4 months into me living there he suddenly got ballsy and isn’t afraid of the gate anymore and has been jumping over it or pushing through it. I’ll be standing right at the bottom of the stairs and if I turn away for a second he’ll try to sneak upstairs to spray and attack poor fat fat. I know you’re not supposed to yell at cats or really discipline them because it could make the spraying and bad behaviors worse. Especially since I believe Deutch already has separation anxiety from my bf’s mom. He’s her cat and he LOVES HER it’s so adorable. But when she’s at work and I’m here alone, poor thing is constantly meowing for her. Or he’ll start meowing for Fat Fat. It’s hard to tell but the low meows get louder and louder before he tries to sneak upstairs. When he does sneak upstairs my bf gets so angry and yells at Deutch and I told him not to but we really don’t know how to stop this :/ he’s to old to get fixed and I don’t think that will stop the spraying anyway because of his age. I can’t watch Deutch literally all day everyday when his mom is at work, making sure he doesn’t sneak upstairs. Any advice or training tips?
 

Mamanyt1953

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It is certainly not too late to get your Deutch neutered, and although it won't stop everything, it will, after about three weeks stop most of it, and at that point you'll be better able to deal with things. Fat Fat needs spaying, as well. It will cut down on her chances of developing mammary cancer (though not as much as it would have when she was a kitten), and will totally get rid of the chance of pyometra, a potentially fatal (and not rare) uterine infection in cats. Should she develop pyometra, she will have to be spayed to save her life, if you catch it in time.

As far as disciplining Deutch for spraying, there is literally nothing you can do, outside of neutering, that has any chance of working, and may make him even worse. It's like asking us how to discipline him for breathing.
 

silent meowlook

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Ok, you absolutely must spay and neuter those cats. Find a feline only vet to help you and get it done. Punishing or yelling won’t do anything but make the cats more neurotic. I second what was said above, it’s like getting mad at them for breathing. If finances are an issue there are many low cost options out there and financial aid available to help.
 
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McBoredFace

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I guess you need to make a homemade gate that is sturdier and taller. Some pictures in here: How To Successfully Introduce Cats: The Ultimate Guide – TheCatSite Articles

It may not be too practical to have such a thing up forever, but I can't see what else your going to do if your correct its too late to spay/neuter.
We actually have made a home made gate. It’s a little difficult and gets very annoying to have to open and close :/ but I guess it’s working for now. I was just wondering if there were any other ways to stop him from spraying.
 
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McBoredFace

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It sounds like Deutch is a frustrated male.
Is he still intact?
yeah that’s honestly what I thought. I think he wants to “love” her but she doesn’t want ANY part of it. And Yes he’s not fixed
 
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McBoredFace

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It is certainly not too late to get your Deutch neutered, and although it won't stop everything, it will, after about three weeks stop most of it, and at that point you'll be better able to deal with things. Fat Fat needs spaying, as well. It will cut down on her chances of developing mammary cancer (though not as much as it would have when she was a kitten), and will totally get rid of the chance of pyometra, a potentially fatal (and not rare) uterine infection in cats. Should she develop pyometra, she will have to be spayed to save her life, if you catch it in time.

As far as disciplining Deutch for spraying, there is literally nothing you can do, outside of neutering, that has any chance of working, and may make him even worse. It's like asking us how to discipline him for breathing.
Oh wow I didn’t know any of that. Thank you so much!
i talked to my bf and he told me fat fat actually is spayed. So that’s good then! :)but I don’t think he wants to get Deutch fixed. He’s very stubborn(my bf) and since Deutch is so skittish and scared of everything he doesn’t want to stress him out more by putting him in a crate and bringing him to the vet. So I’ve made a gate and I guess that’s the best we can do? Thank you so much
 
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McBoredFace

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Ok, you absolutely must spay and neuter those cats. Find a feline only vet to help you and get it done. Punishing or yelling won’t do anything but make the cats more neurotic. I second what was said above, it’s like getting mad at them for breathing. If finances are an issue there are many low cost options out there and financial aid available to help.
Thank you so much for your help! But as I said above I don’t think my bf wants to even try to get Deutch fixed. As least fat fat is tho. But yes I have told my bf to stop yelling at Deutch when he sprays. So hopefully that will help.
 
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McBoredFace

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Thank you so much everyone for your quick replies and help! I really appreciate it :)
 

Willowy

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I understand not wanting to stress Deutch, but does that also mean he doesn't have his vaccines, and hasn't had any checkups? That's not good. I'd have everything done at once, get it over with.

He'll calm down a lot after being neutered, and not being yelled at will help calm him too. Intact males are often on edge because on the streets they have to be constantly vigilant for other males stealing their territory and/or females, so they can never really relax. Once he's neutered (and give it a while for the hormones to fully clear out), he should feel a lot more relaxed.
 

Mamanyt1953

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Tell your bf that male cats are far more sensible than humans about their testicles. They don't have their sense of themselves as males all wrapped up in those two bits of flesh. He won't miss them at all, will be much calmer about everything, COULD, if Fat Fat was having it, still actually mate with no problem. AND he won't get testicular cancer or a couple of other hormone-driven cancers.

Failing that, you can order stud pants for him. From what I've seen, he'd be happier if neutered in the long run, but the stud pants will keep the spray contained.
 

Caspers Human

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I agree with the others. First and foremost, get both cats spayed and neutered.
It's never too late to get a cat fixed.

The behaviors you are seeing...spraying, "rough" playing, rolling, meowing at all hours, etc...are all sexual behaviors in cats.
As Ze Frank of YouTube, "True Facts" fame might say, "That's how cats do."

Second, you don't "discipline" a cat. You "teach" a cat.
Yelling, hitting, spraying with water and other things you might think of as "discipline" don't work with cats. Instead, you have to learn to out-think the cat and teach it that there are better things to do besides, scratching furniture, spraying, jumping on counters or avoiding the litter box.

There are only a very few reasons to use discipline on a cat. Among them would be something dangerous, such as going near a hot stove, where the cat might get hurt or hurt others. Fighting or bullying is another possibility. Even then, you don't hit or punish the cat. You tell it, "No!" in a firm voice. If the cat is doing something really bad, maybe you'll clap your hands or stomp your foot but that's only for the really bad things when the cat doesn't listen to other warnings.

You should only use "discipline" on a cat when the chances of hurting or upsetting the cat are outweighed by the chances of getting hurt if you don't. In other words, when a "little bit of hurt" will prevent "a lot of hurt."

Our Casper is the most well behaved cat I have ever had. He has never gone outside his litter box except when he was sick. He only scratches furniture when he thinks he's not getting enough attention from us. I have not, once, seen him jump up on the kitchen counter and "counter surf." Once in a while, he gets into something he shouldn't or he gets a bit more mischievous than he should but, cats will be cats. It's part of the game.

Every once in a blue moon, we catch Casper doing something we don't want him to do. We just say, "Cas-PER!" and he usually stops.

Casper's everyday name is "Puddy Tat." I don't know why he likes to be called "Puddy Tat" but, one day, I called him that and he came over and meowed at me so, from that day forward, he was known by that nickname. He also knows that, when he gets called by his given name that he's in trouble for something. It's a lot like a five year old kid named "Johnny" who knows when his mother calls him "Johnathan" he's going to be in trouble.

That's about as far as you should go with cat discipline.

Many people try to discipline a cat the way they discipline a dog. While that might work on a dog, it's counter productive for a cat.

Like I said, you have to be a kind of detective to figure out what motivates a cat and to either redirect behavior to something more agreeable or find the cat something more fun to do, instead.

Right now, the things that are driving your male cat's behavior are his testicles. If you remove the testicles, you remove the behavior. Even if it's an older cat, you'll still stop most of the problems, cold, in their tracks. :)
 

Kflowers

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for a bit more money, you can have the surgery done in a way that it appears the cat still has his testicles. This will not matter to the cat, he could care less, but if others need them to still be there in appearance and have the money, it can be done.

You do realize that the smell of tom cat spray gets stronger over time. His need to mate will also get stronger over time. Be sure to secure all your window screens and watch whenever you open the doors. Fighting for sex in the outside world is dangerous and can lead to fatal illnesses from deep bites either through disease or infection, big money at the vet either way. Many many male cats die under the wheels of a car when they are chasing female cats across the street.
 

doomsdave

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Don't be cavalier about a kitty pee problem.

Sometimes, males fixed after sexual maturity don't stop spraying. Or, sometimes they do it under "stress" and you play the damn Devil trying to ameliorate that, while, Mr. Macho pees all over, and you never really do figure out why exactly he's doing it.

A wee-wee here, and a wee-wee there, usually not a problem.

But, if Mr. Macho marks his territory all the time, that pussy piss can make a really horrible mess, particularly if he goes in corners in areas with wood floors, siding, etc. Wood, even finished wood, soaks up cat urine like a sponge, especially flat areas like a hardwood floor. If it goes on long enough that pee will migrate, literally, a foot or more into the wooden substructure beneath it. If this happened in, say, 2012, that odor is going to persist for a long time. If you have to sell the house before the odor dissipates (maybe by 2045?), you'll have to remove that soaked underlying wood, too, in order to get rid of the smell. If that includes supporting beams for the house, that can get costly and bothersome. A cranky old contractor told me he'd had to do repairs in the 1990s on a Cat Lady Mansion that had had urine in it deposited in the 1950s. (I'd be cranky, too, I guess.)

Cat urine is much worse than dogs'; what they lack in volume from size, they more than make up for in potency. It will rust grates and wire, the metal frames on sliding wardrobe doors, little lips on an oven door, and the mechanisms for vacuum cleaners. It will seriously damage paint, varnish and other finishes, and can spot fabrics.

If you get it up with a sponge or toilet paper fast enough it's not so bad; those enzyme cleaners can sometimes help, too. Though I don't know if they'd migrate through wood like urine does. (Anyone have any experience in this area? Hope not, but, maybe share?)

And, Hell is the Wee-Wee Gang of male kitties, all trying to out-macho-mark each other in (your) small living space.
 
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