Outdoor Cats Causing My Indoor Cat Stress?

[kobata1928]

I have three indoor cats who are all fixed and all get along great. In the last month it has become nice enough to keep the windows open which they all love. Around 2 months ago my boy Oscar went to the vet multiple times for an UTI, and he has been perfectly fine ever since. There has been no changes to their environment and they are eating wet food with no fish. This week at night, there has been the unmistakable yowling of cats mating outside and Oscar gets agitated, staring out the window growling. Now today he is showing signs of problems urinating and I have been reading of stress related UTI's. If this is the problem simply closing the windows won't help since it is very loud. I can't really do anything about the cats outside because the ones I see normally have collars. Obviously I won't hesitate to take him back to the vet if his symptoms worsen. I bought some calming spray and am looking at the feliway but don't know if that would help in this case. I've read through some older related threads and was wondering if anyone has had any similar experiences.

 

[rubysmama]

It could be stress caused by hearing the outdoor cats. Per the below article, elimination issues is one symptom of stress.
Is Your Cat Stressed Out?

Or it could be a re-occurrence of the UTI.

I'm a worrier, and tend to err on the side of caution, so I'd probably call the vet and them them what's going on, and see what they say.

Hope Oscar feels better soon.

 

[cheeser]

We went through something similar, except it was birds that were stressing Buddy out and triggering his urinary tract flare-ups.

Our vet recommended Zylkene, which is an OTC stress-relief remedy, or calming treats that contain L-theanine. He also recommended Feliway diffusers. For our cat, it made all the difference in the world.

And to give you an idea how well it worked to alleviate stress for him, Buddy managed quite nicely during Hurricane Harvey, when we had some wicked thunderstorms and flooding for nearly a week.

But that's just our experience, and there are other products that your vet may feel are better suited for your cat's needs.

Also, you said that you feed Oscar only wet food, with no fish. Is his diet also low carb? Until we did that, per the recommendations at catinfo.org, Buddy was having flare-ups every three months. That's something else you might want to ask your vet about.

 

[kobata1928]

We went through something similar, except it was birds that were stressing Buddy out and triggering his urinary tract flare-ups.

Our vet recommended Zylkene, which is an OTC stress-relief remedy, or calming treats that contain L-theanine. He also recommended Feliway diffusers. For our cat, it made all the difference in the world.

And to give you an idea how well it worked to alleviate stress for him, Buddy managed quite nicely during Hurricane Harvey, when we had some wicked thunderstorms and flooding for nearly a week.

But that's just our experience, and there are other products that your vet may feel are better suited for your cat's needs.

Also, you said that you feed Oscar only wet food, with no fish. Is his diet also low carb? Until we did that, per the recommendations at catinfo.org, Buddy was having flare-ups every three months. That's something else you might want to ask your vet about.

Yeah, Oscar is already on 5% carb food. I looked at Zylkene and it says for intermittent use only, was it only recommended when symptoms started appearing? Today Oscar has been doing better but not back to normal, I'll continue to monitor him closely. With the long weekend my only option will be to take him to the emergency vet if he gets any worse before Tuesday.