Expert: Norman Auspitz - 12/1/2011

Question
Hi Norman,
I took 2 kittens over the summer, which are now 7 months old now (brother and sister). The boy is the more outgoing of the 2, he just loves human attention whether the female was extremely nervous from the start and has literally taken months to come out. She is more sociable now and is definitely looking for some attention and loves being petted. Although they were adopted as stray, we have not allowed them outside, as we wanted to wait until they were attached to us and a bit older. About mid-October, the female fled through the back door of the house (got into a panic because of the hoover…). We thought we’d never see her again, but completely out of the blue she turned up again after 2 weeks... Although a bit down at first, the boy quickly got used to being the main focal point (we both felt sorry for him!) and was not impressed at all when she came back. We got the 2 of them neutered straight after the female’s return in order to avoid further complications (this was done about 3 weeks ago). But now we are having 2 problems. The girl was always very shy, so the fact the she is coming out now is definitely brilliant and we want to reward this by lots of praise and attention. However, the boy is not taking well to this at all, and a few days ago, started peeing and pooing outside his litter box. We do not think this is UTI, as he doesn’t seem in pain (he squats and leaves a huge pool). He also seemed to “vocalise” beforehand, and when using the litter tray he has stopped covering up his faeces. I separated their food bowls, and am now extra careful to pet them both at the same time (since doing this he has stopped peeing outside the tray, but I really have to watch him as he gets very jealous). The only problem is that we really want to encourage the female, and there is a fair amount of bullying going on already on the boy’s part. He is also constantly “whining” and looking for attention from us. It is clear to him that he is the alpha male. So I guess my question is twofold: how can we prevent him from bullying his sister (meanwhile giving her some well deserved attention), and how to stop the wrong toilet behaviour? Any ideas would be welcome. Thank you.

Answer
Myriam,

It sounds as if things are working themselves out.  If he is no longer peeing outside of the litter pan, that is a good thing and you just must keep up what you are doing.

As far as to how to deal with their relationship, I am afraid that the best thing to do is to leave it alone.  Any further human intervention will probably be counter productive.  It seems to me, from your descriptions, that she and he have an "understanding".  I find that we mere humans do not understand the rules of cat inter-relationships.  Furthermore, we tend top attribute human motives and emotions to the cats. Unfortunately they do not think like we do, and I am sure we tend to misunderstand how they see each other.

So, in answer to your questions, I am not sure what you are seeing is really bullying  in the human sense and, it seems that the bad toilet habit were meant to get your attention that he wanted more attention. Wherever he peed where he should not have, you do need to clean it up with a cat odor and stain removal product (available from most pet supermarkets and farm stores).

Seasonal regards... Norm.