Expert: Tina - 3/24/2007

Question
I have 2 cats, about 4.5 years old - they are brothers, both neutered, and have never been apart a day in their lives. They have always been best friends. When they were kittens, they lived in an apartment with me. 1 year later I moved to another apartment (with my now-husband) - everything was still fine.  2 years after that we bought a house, and moved, along with the boys. The one cat, Tango, started having a urination problem - he would go in the litter box, but also on the floor, the bed, dirty laundry, the couch, anywhere he wanted. It was not spraying, it was like he'd save it up all day, and empty his bladder on whatever he was peeing on. After 1 year of this, I finally took him to my vet and asked what was going on. (Through this all, his brother, Skippy, never once urinated somewhere inappropriate that we know of).  The vet prescribed Amitriptyline - 10mg tablets, Tango was to get 1/2 pill every day. We did this for 1 month, he didn't pee anywhere bad, so the vet told me to continue him on the medication for 3 more months and see how he did.  Also after we moved into the house, we noticed that the cats would fight everytime they saw another cat outside the house somewhere. It was always Tango who would initiate the fighting - he would see the other cat, puff up and start growling and hissing, then turn to Skippy, and attack him.  (By the way, they are strictly indoor cats, and are declawed).  Well, after starting Tango on the medication, they started fighting more, with no apparent reason. Tango is always the initiator. They are now unable to be in the same room - as soon as Skippy gets within 10 feet of Tango, Tango starts to hiss and growl, and they end up in a fight. In the past their fights were very quick - after about 5 or 10 minutes they'd forget that they were fighting and were friends again. Now this fight is going on about 6-8 hours, and I am extremely worried. Do you have any idea what could be causing this behavior? It's entirely Tango - Skippy is very confused and keeps trying to go to Tango and see what is wrong, but Tango won't let him near. Please help!!

Answer
HI Kim,

You have 2 separate but inter-related problems to deal with. Urinary tract problems are definitely made worse by stress, and I am certain Tango still has a urinary tract problem. Frequently in cats these are "idiopathic" meaning no definitive cause is found such as an infection, but nevertheless the cat is in extreme discomfort at all times and begins to associate the litterbox and urinating with pain.

Also, a sick cat sometimes associates his pain with another animal or person nearby - basically he starts to believe that "that Skippy cat is always around, and I am always hurting, so it must be Skippy's fault!". I know that seems silly but it is the type of conclusion that human children and animals seem to come to sometimes, looking for a cause for their pain. So you can se how both problems are making the other problem worse!

The first thing you should do is separate both cats with the intention to keep them apart for at least a couple of weeks. During this time, I'd like you to consider changing the cats' diet to help Tango's urinary tract problems, rather than the medication. I am not sure what you are feeding him now, but most people feed dry food and sometimes a bit of canned food. Changing to a grain free high meat content canned cat food ONLY and eliminating dry food will cure most urinary tract problems. A home made raw meat diet is even better - I feed my cats home made raw food according to the recipe given in the website below (although my cats prefer rabbit meat, which I order online pre-ground). With the recent pet food recall and the disgusting revelations about how pet food companies but corners to save money, more and more people are considering making their own pet food so they can control the quality of the meat and ingredients that go into the food.

A diet high in meat protein naturally acidifies the urine, reducing bacterial growth and the formation or irritating crystals. A canned or raw meat diet is also very high in water and will flush out the urinary tract effectively, which further reduces urinary tract problems.

For more information on how diet affects the urinary tract and other aspects of your cats' health, please read this web page:

http://www.catinfo.org

More info on raw meat and home-made diets:

http://www.catnutrition.org
http://www.felinefuture.com

Another aspect to this fighting problem redirected aggression - this occurs when one of your cats sees an intruder cat (or smells or senses him) and can't get at the intruder. She sometimes goes into fight mode and his body is flooded with adrenaline, and in that state she'll fight almost any other animal that she sees as a threat, or even gets too close. Redirected aggression can be helped by

1. excluding roaming cats from your yard with fences (and cat-proof fence toppers such as chicken wire extensions. Check this article for suggestions on cat proofing a yard at the bottom of the article are some links for fence toppers and free standing cat fences, which keep cats in a yard but also out!
http://catnet.stanford.edu/articles/enclosures.html

2. Using Feliway plug-in diffusers and/or spray. Feliway mimics facial pheremones cats use to mark their territory by running their cheeks on things, and it is a big help with territorial aggression. You can find Feliway at most pet stores or online. I find the spray most effective but best of all is to use the diffuser for a constant level (it also seems to take 2 weeks or so to work) and the spray re-applied every 3 days. Spray it on doorways and furniture at cat-rubbing level.

3. Nutritionally, you can help reduce aggression by supplementing your cat's food with tryptophan, an amino acid that is a serotonin precursor and helps mellow out mammals. You can buy it at some health food stores and online at places like vitaminshoppe.com. Get capsules, you can pull the capsules apart and sprinkle the powder on canned food and mix in - it has pretty much no taste so your cat should eat it fine. Tryptophan is much cheaper and just as effective as "kitty prozac" sold by vets. Also it is very safe, since it's just an amino acid present in meat there is a very good safety margin. I recommend giving 500 mg a day per cat.

Once Tango's urinary tract problems are stabilized and the cats have both been getting tryptophan for a week or so and the Feliway has been in use, you can start to think about re-introducing them. Here is an article with info on how to do this to minimize the likelihood of aggression:

http://catnet.stanford.edu/articles/introducing_cats.html


Good luck!