Conference misery::feline_v1

    Yes, neutered males do spray!  I have one, and so do my parents.  TK,
    my neutered male, will only spray outside.  The neighbors across the
    way have a spayed female and TK will go into the bushes and spray to
    mark his territory.  He lives in a house with four other neutered males
    yet has never (knock wood) sprayed in the house.
    
    TJ, my parent's cat, does spray in the house.  My mom had the vet put
    TJ on a drug called Ovaban that reduces aggression and curbs spraying
    in neutered male cats.  Ovaban has side affects, though, so it should be
    used with caution and only if the situation really warrants it.  TJ
    would back up to walls, wall units, etc., and spray... right in front
    of my mom!  The Ovaban has helped immensely.  TJ is by nature a very
    mellow, mushy cat so the spraying habit really surprised us.
    
    Some cats, if neutered later in life, never stop spraying even after
    neutering.  My TK was a stray cat who was neutered at about 3-4 years
    old.  He was the neighborhood tom prior to losing his manhood so my
    guess is that his old habits were difficult to break.
    

    Even spayed, female cats can spray if they get into a territorial
    battle.  We had 4 cats: Princess, Eve, Bryn and Misty.  For whatever
    reason, Bryn (a beautiful Russian Blue) and Eve got into a territorial
    battle in our house.
    
    Eve claimed my parents bedroom and spraying the bed, drapes, and
    anything else she thought Bryn might want.  Bryn claimed ME!  I would
    be sitting in a chair innocently watching TV, reading, etc.  Bryn would
    jump up in my lap and before I knew it she would be spraying away!  The
    spray smells JUST as bad as a male tom's does.
    
    For some reason Princess and Misty never got into the act.  In speaking
    with our vet, he advised putting one of the cats to sleep to see if
    that cured the other one.  It was a VERY hard decision but my parents
    decided to put Eve to sleep.  I stayed with her and it was SO sad - the
    vet let me stay in the room with her for as long as I wanted to, crying
    my eyes out!  Unfortunately, this didn't cure Bryn - she continued to
    go after me with a vengence!  So, my parents had to put her down too. 
    They stayed with her - I couldn't handle that one.
    
    By the way, having been a cat-lover/owner all my life, these are the
    ONLY two cats I've EVER heard of which had this problem so I wouldn't
    get too concerned about it if anyone is considering adding another cat
    to their household.
    
    Just a [sad] but interesting story....

    Spraying the owner or other areas of the house could indicate a
    urinary infection.
    
    Bonnie

    I was surprised when I saw one of my males do this - Stitch was nutered
    at 7 months so when I saw him aiming his back end to the bush outside
    our front door I was a little taken back because I initially thought
    that nutering would take care of this - he never displays this behavior
    in the house - just when he goes out the front door with us to pick up
    the mail or the paper - I think I've seen our other guy do it on
    occasion but thankfully it's always been outside.
    
    Giudi

    Misha sprays as well.  I've had him to the vet and checked out,
    and he doesn't have an infection.  Since my husband and I divorced
    and we split the seven of them up somewhat (I have four including
    Misha, Ian has two, my Mom and Dad have one), he's been a bit better,
    but he seems to do it as a sort of expression of disapproval, ie,
    I'm not paying enough attention to him, am away at work, the food dish
    is below "Misha-tolerable" level, etc.  I love the big guy to death,
    he's such a sweet tempered lovable boy, so my nose and I just follow
    him around with Nature's Miracle....Fortunately he doesn't express his
    "dissatisfaction" very often.  :-)
    
    
    Mary-Michael, Misha, Mips, Belle and Dream

    Some male cats will go through the spraying motions but nothing comes
    out.  It is important to determine if this is what your cat is doing.
    
    Now Dundee sprays!  And just to be sure we're all talking about the
    same thing here, "Spraying" is done from a standing position onto
    vertical surfaces.  usually the cat holds his tail straight up and
    it quivers.  "Marking" is urinating on horizontal surfaces and is
    usually done from a squatting position. Spraying is very obviously
    a territorial behavior, Marking may indicate a urinary track
    infection or some other problem - like a dirty litterbox.
    
    In Dundee's case it is most likely due to the presence of whole
    females in heat since I'm a breeder.  He IS on ovaban but this has
    not eliminated the behavior totally.  So, I now treat him more like
    a whole male and keep him confined when I'm not around to watch
    him.  If his urine smelled stronger then I'd ask the vet who neutered
    him if he was sure he got "everything".
    
    I disagree with the noter who said that the urine of a spayed female
    smells as bad as that of an unneutered tom!  Nothing smells that bad
    :^)  However, an unspayed female can come close.
    
    Nancy

    Hi, my name is Kim and I'm the proud mom of two male kittens.  There
    names are Felix and Oscar and they just turned 7 months old.  They were
    fixed at 5 1/2 months. I'm extremely concerned that they will start to
    spray.  My land lord told me I could only keep the kittens if they were
    declawed and clean.  Well unfortunately they have been declawed and are
    not allowed outside.  They are friendly as ever and do not seem upset
    by the changes is their life.  They have the run of the house and are
    pretty spoiled, unfortunately if they start to spray, or spray urine
    all of us could end up homeless.  Is there anyway I can prevent this
    from happening?  Or any signs to look for?  The two kittens are
    brothers and not only are extremely friendly towards anyone with legs,
    the also do not like to be separated for any length of time (i.e.
    vets). Any suggestions or adivce would be greatly appreciated.
    
    Regards,
    Kim
    
    P.S.  I'm a first time owner

    Hi Kim!
    
    If they have not sprayed yet, or did not before they were 
    neutered (fixed) you probably will not have that problem.
    
    Did they spray before?
    
    Lynne

    Kim, my guess is you're safe.  It might make you feel better to buy a
    bottle of Nature's Miracle at a pet store so you could clean up any
    accident quickly, but it sounds like the prompt fixing plus the company
    they keep each other and your attention have you all in fat city.
    

    Upon close observation this weekend I found that Stitch, who I thought
    was spraying the bush by our front door is not.  He's acting like he is
    but nothing is, ahemmm, coming out.  He'll back up to it tail straight
    up in the air and then the tail twitches as in spraying but that's
    about it.  Again, he never demonstrates this behavior in the house. 
    Gino has also done this out front but I'm going to assume that he's
    spraying "blanks" as well.  I guess this is what you call mock
    spraying.  They were both nutered at 7-1/2 months and are respectively
    7 and almost 4.
    
    Giudi

    I just wanted to say thanks to Lynne and Karen for their replys. 
    Hopefully all will go well and the only problem I'll end up with is
    trying to sleep with 20lbs on my chest.  My vet told me they will
    probably grow out of the stage of sleeping on top of me, he said that
    they probably enjoy listening to my heart.
    
    This was the first time I've written in this file for help and it's a
    great feeling to know that their are experienced cat lovers to help out
    new moms.

VIRGO::FRANCIS --> Really?  Your vet said that cats outgrow sleeping on top 
	of you?   I must have had an overgrown baby because I had a cat for 
	16 years that insisted she absolutely positively couldn't not sleep
	without being on top of me.  :-)

    re; outgrowing sleeping on top of you
    
    Tell that to 9 year old Holly.
    

    Tell that to my two 4 yr old, Casey & B.K. (-;
    
    
    

You know, some day, when you've had a bad day, you'll want nothing more than
a warm purring kitty sleeping on your chest.....

Julie still clings to me, as does baby Beth.......

Mary

re: spraying

if you have males cats that are neutered, kept inside, and not exposed to
other cats who spray (in this case, they seeem to "learn" to spray), you
are pretty much assured you won't have a spraying problem if it doesn't
show up prior to neutering.  Once neutered, indoor-only cats usually don't
start spraying if they haven't sprayed before the operation.  One
thing that can start a neutered cat spraying is to have a whole male or
whole female mark the outside of his house while marking their territory.