Stress in Cats

Believe it or not but stress amongst our feline friends is on the increase. This in some ways is due to our attitude towards them and our desire to include them in our family.

Stress can manifest itself in many different ways—too many to go into detail here, but the common symptoms are:-
Spraying and inappropriate toileting
Aggression
Over grooming
Hiding away

Many factors can increase the stress in their lives, for example:-
Changes to their routine e.g. building work, house move, addition of a new pet or person into the household.
Owner absence.
Inappropriate facilities e.g. too few litter trays, hiding places, keeping an outdoor cat indoors.
Visit or hospitalization at the vets, cattery or groomer.

Never fear! With some careful detective work and possibly the help of a qualified behaviourist and TLC on your part, most of these problems can be either reduced or eliminated.

Firstly, we advise getting any cat with a sudden change of behaviour examined by the vet to exclude any medical cause. Once this is ruled out we can examine the cat’s normal routine.

Simple things to start with:-
Ensure sufficient resources (e.g. litter trays should be one per cat and one spare. These should be placed in different locations and not near feeding stations—would you eat near your toilet?!
Allow the cat to control interactions with its owner
Keep cat populations down and within own family groups.
Allow cats access to outside even if only on a lead/harness or an enclosure for stimulation.
Provide play opportunities
Stimulate house cats—play/scratch posts allow them to perform natural behaviour.
Avoid cleaning any urine with bleach or other ammonia based products as ammonia is the main component of cat urine and so to them you are cleaning cat urine with tiger urine! This just encourages them to urinate again.

Please ask at reception for further information on the correct cleaning of cat urine.