today I'm going to give you nine tips for how to stop your cat spraying
everywhere hi I'm dr. Alex Avery from ourpetshealth.com helping you and
your cat to live a healthier happier life so if it's your first time here
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now cats who urinate everywhere who are spraying outside of the litter tray
they're urinating outside the litter tray they're have accidents around the house
it's a really stressful time not just for you but also for your cat and there
are a number of things we can do to stop that so today I'm gonna give you 9 tips
and 9 steps so step number one is to understand why cats spray so spraying is
a marking behavior they are leaving their urine scent mark in their
environment really to let other cats and other animals know that they're around
it helps them control their territory it helps avoid conflict with other cats and
so that's really why they're doing it they're marking their territory
so step number two to stop your cat spraying everywhere is to understand the
difference between spraying and actually inappropriate urination so when your cat
is spraying they will typically back up to a vertical surface or like a wall
maybe the side of your sofa and they will often lift their tail it may twitch
a little bit and the urine will spray out and onto that vertical surface so
that's really spraying urination on the other hand they will get into a
crouching position and they will urinate as though they're urinating normally
they might strain a little bit and things like that but they will be
urinating on a horizontal surface so that's really the big difference between
urination and spraying and that's really important so step number three is to
make sure there's no underlying medical condition and this is definitely the
case if your cat is urinating inappropriately rather than spraying so
if they're squatting but they're not using their litter tray they're going in
different parts then that might be a sign that something else is going on and
there are a whole heap of different problems that can cause inappropriate
urination in cats and may include things like arthritis
diabetes kidney disease where there may be either difficulty
getting into the litter tray or your cat may be just producing so much urine
they really just need to go all the time and then other conditions that actually
affect the bladder and urinary tract itself so things like cystitis bladder
tumors and bladder stones that kind of thing so if there's anything like that
going on then obviously we need to tackle the root cause and that should
resolve and correct the problem with inappropriate urination if your cats got
arthritis I've certainly got several videos and strategies about that and
also with cystitis I've got some videos and strategies that we can use to cope
with that so make sure you check out those videos which I'll link down in the
description below okay so step number four is to check that your cat is
neutered so this might seem like an obvious thing but our cats who are
neutered are much less likely to spray they've got less of a drive to maintain
a territory to defend that territory they're generally less stressed as well
so if your cat is spraying and they are entire then getting them neutered it might be
just what needs to happen to resolve that problem there are so many other
reasons that we should be getting our cats spayed or castrated and
I've got a video that I'll link up here and also down in the description that
lets you know the benefits of that and also when you should consider getting
your cat neutered so step number five is to reduce your cat stress levels so this
is especially the case if they're spraying stress really just causes them
to want to mark their territory more so as well as spraying they might be
clawing and scratching the furniture again just trying to mark out their
territory stress is a huge issue in cats and it's often one that we don't
recognize maybe as well as we should just because some of the signs
can be subtle but spraying is often really a true sign that your cat is
stressed they can be stressed about a lot of different things and there are a
whole number of ways that we can go about correcting that which might
involve in environmental changes making sure other cats aren't coming into your
house and eating their food making sure there's the right number of food bowls
and litter trays depending on the number of cats in your house and I've got a lot
of other tips in the video I'll link up here all about reducing stress in your
cat okay step number six is to consider litter tray management so that
involves what type of litter you're using so some cats will really like one litter
that maybe is unscented and you're using a scented one they might dislike a clay
based one that can actually clump and stick to the soles of their feet
so consider the litter type the litter tray type as well so if your cat has
arthritis then they might find actually getting into a high lip litter tray
quite difficult consider where you're putting your litter tray so cats will
generally like a private enclosed area so not in really busy kind of through
traffic areas so the middle of the hall by the front door really wouldn't be a
great spot for for their litter tray also cleaning them regularly so again
some cats will only really want to use a litter tray once or they won't use it
if another cat has been in there so making sure that you clean the litter tray regularly
enough and then having enough litter trays so as a general rule we should
have one more litter tray than the number of cats in the house so if you've
only got one cat then that's two litter trays
if you've got four cats then really you need five litter trays all in different
locations so litter tray management is another way that we can
stop our cat spraying everywhere and urinating everywhere so at step number
seven and if there's still a problem after all of these other tips if your
cat especially if they're spraying or urinating in one spot in particular what
you can try and do is either actually just move their litter tray there it
might not be where you want it but if you can get them back using the litter
tray you can then slowly move it back to a position where you're happy for that
litter tray to be alternatively you can even actually try putting their food and
water in that area cats are really clean hygienic animals in general and
they don't like peeing where their food or their water is so putting that there
can help put them off so step number eight is to clean up properly after your
cat so there are certain things within the cat's urine that will attract them
back to that same spot and so they'll often keep re-marking in the same
spot now what this means is that we need to clean that area properly now what I
generally suggest is that while there are various sprays and cleaners on the
market which do a good job another thing that we can use is we can use biological
washing powder just mix that with a bit of water
to create a solution and then just really scrub that area and allow that to
soak in and what will happen is the enzymes in that biological washing
powder will help break down all of the things that are attracting
your cat back to that area the same goes for the sprays they work in a very
similar way but making sure that you clean up really appropriately and
quickly and with the right cleaner is very important and then step number nine
is things to avoid so you should definitely avoid negative reinforcement
so don't shout at your cat don't kind of punish them in any way especially if
it's a long time after they're doing that spraying or urinating because all
that's going to do is going to make them more stressed they're probably not going
to understand have a clue what they've done wrong and that's probably only
going to make the problem worse it's certainly not going to improve the
situation another thing that we should avoid doing in cats that are urinating
everywhere or your anything outside of their litter tray is to use ammonia
based cleaning products so they have things that ammonia is what's kind of
actually attracting cats back to the area so by using things like bleach you
can actually be kind of just perpetuating the problem because your
cat will be attracted back to that area and then the last thing that you should
avoid doing is avoid using deterrant sprays so again if you've got something
in a cat's environment that really is repelling them it's only going to cause
them more stress and while they might not urinate in that particular spot
again they're just going to go and find somewhere else to urinate and it's not
going to be in the litter tray so I hope all of these points these nine tips to
stop your cat urinating everywhere help solve your habit I know it can be an
incredibly stressful time both for your cat and for you as their owner if you've
got any other tips that have really worked for you or if you've got any
questions then please leave me a comment down below also remember to subscribe to
make sure you don't miss out on future videos just like this one and until next
time i'm dr. alex from our pets health because they're family