Expert: Dear Tabbi - 8/26/2008

Question
I have two cats, one male and one female. They get along great. My male cat is very particular about the litterbox and will pee on other things if it's dirty, so I have made an effort to clean it often. The peeing on other things stopped.

Well, today, there was a cat outside the window. My male cat and the outside cat were going at it, smacking the window very hard. The outside cat was throwing itself against the window in a head butt, so I thought it best to take the cats to the other end of the house. They are both black cats, if the window were to break, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart. The male cat tried to open the hallway door to go back out to the room where the window was. I closed it shut and told him no. He then proceeded to the laundry pile (before I had a chance to put it in the wash) and peed on my clothes.

So obviously, this is a blatant behavioral problem. He was upset that I would not let him out. Is kitty prozac the only way to correct this problem?

Answer
Melissa,

Are both of your cats fixed? If not, doing it will help.

It is a behavior problem called Redirected Aggression. That happens when a cat sees a strange cat outside and  becomes territorial, but can't get to the strange cat to defend his territory. The cat can turn on the closest animal member of the family and fights with them as if they were the other cat. They also begin peeing and defecating outsite the litterbox to mark their territory.

The first thing you need to do is block the window past the cat's eye level of the window he can see another cat out of (out of sight, out of mind). If it is allowed to go on your cat may develop a permanent personality change. Also put the cat in a room by itself for at least 4 hours to calm down when he behaves like that.

There is a very popular cat calming spray and plug-in you can use called Feliway. It is available at pet stores or on-line. It copies relaxing pheromones that cats produce from rubbing their faces on things.

There is also a calming product that you can add to the cat's food or water that reduces anxiety called Bach's Rescue Remedy. It is available on-line and in health food stores. Here is a link about it: (copy and paste, or type the whole links into your address bar) http://www.bachflower.com/Pets.htm

If your cat is still being very stressed the vet can put him on "kitty Prozac" for a short term (usually 2 weeks) until he calms down. You may want to speak to the vet about it. But that is the last resort.

I am including links to 2 good articles on Redirected Aggression that may be helpful to you:

http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/aggression3.html

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?action=library&act=show&item=redirectedagr...

I hope this helped.

Tabbi