Expert: Tina - 12/17/2008

Question
I have an approx. 1 year old cat who adopted my family. (He was living in our alley, but snuck in to our house when we came home one night- without us seeing him!) He came into our lives at about 6 months. I took him to the vet, and he has all shots, cleared with no diseases in his system ever. He is not neutered yet, although the vet did mention he is extremely, um, largely developed for his breed and age (American Short Hair, 9 months at last checkup, now 1 year old).
We have noticed 3 problems:
1- He tends to bolt for the door, and yowls and mews sometimes for an hour or more- always looking in windows and seeming so unhappy. We tried some recommended tryptophan supplements for this, but I feel awful giving him pills all the time!
2- When he sleeps, he sometimes seems to maybe pee just a little on himself. When he wakes up, there seem to be a few drops of urine on his fur near where it would be normal for him to urinate. The fluid smells (although I haven't had my nose right up to it of course!) somewhat of urine or male spray.
3- Although he has ceased doing this since the tryptophan pills we were encouraged to use (but I still feel bad- like I'm drugging him or something!): He has peed on our living room rug a few times. Mewling and whining the whole time, he then tries to bury the offending odor (for over ten to fifteen minutes) before he gives up and becomes very grumpy, upset and antisocial.
As far as other information, we also have a very social (to humans) and semi-antisocial (to cats) female spayed American Short Hair 17 year old in the household. The 1 year old male tries to groom her, but other than cleaning her ears and forehead, she growls and swats at him. He also seems somewhat obessed with her genital area grooming, and has tried to be, well, intimate with it, but she growls mightily at that and swats him or runs away.
I want my lovely older kitty and my new young cat to get along... without the little one peeing and being upset all the time! Can I do this without drugs?

Answer
HI Vyvyen,

An un-neutered male will not only start to spray urine to mark territory, but he will try harder and harder to escape and find a female to mate with. He will be driven by hormones to mate Neutering him as soon as possible will put a stop to all of these behaviors, although it tales a month or so after neutering for the hormone levels to fall.

Make sure you select a good vet, who will do monitoring and post-surgery pain medication (ask for fentanyl (patch) or buprenex (oral liquid) for pain - do not allow the vet to give your cat Metacam, which can cause kidney damage in cats), since he is well developed the surgery may be more involved than for a younger kitten. I recommend isoflurane anesthesia.

You should stop giving him the tryptophan pills, they could cause problems in the long run with a dietary imbalance and instead just get him neutered right away!

Good luck.