Indoor Marking - Cat

Introduction

Indoor marking and housesoiling often occur together in the same household, and in a multi-cat household several cats may be involved. An important part of reaching a behavioural diagnosis must be to identify the culprits. Fluorescein dye or sweet corn may be administered in the same way as for house soiling problems, starting with the cats that are least likely to be involved in the problem [see box on the use of fluorescein for identifying the origin of urine deposits].

More than one cat may be involved, and it should be remembered that, in some cases, the culprit for indoor marking may not be a resident cat at all. Intact male cats and despots may enter the homes of other cats to take food, and then leave urine marks within the home. In these cases, treating the resident cats will have no effect on the marking behaviour and, in fact, increasing the level of resources available within the home may raise its value and therefore encourage the despot to try to take it over. In such circumstances, an electronic coded cat-door would need to be fitted.

Prevention

• Introduce new cats carefully and with an accompanying increase in resources for the group.
• When redecorating, building or making changes to house layout, install an F3 diffuser [Feliway] to maintain core territory odour signals. Allow paint to dry and the room to air thoroughly before allowing the cat[s] back into it. Harvest facial and flank odours from the

cat[s] and apply these to doorways, and furnishings in the newly decorated area. If the cat is particularly sensitive to change it may be better to arrange a cattery stay during major projects of redecoration or renovation, especially if they involve core territory areas for the particular cat.

• Provide adequate resources for the group.
• When cats are temporarily removed from the group [such as when going to the vet clinic] they should be reintroduced carefully after trying to re-label them with the group odour.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis involves several steps:

• Identify culprits.
• Assess health status of all group members.
• Map the location of resources and the progression of urine and faecal marks within the home.
• Assess the structure of the social group within the home, to identify potential conflict.
• Identify specific situations in which marking occurs.
• Detail the cat’s behaviour before, during and after incidents.

COMMUNICATION?TERRITORY

The function of marking behaviour is to identify the significance of certain locations to the ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ of the mark. Scent marks, therefore, act both as a memento of previous experience in a location as well as a signal to others. When a cat encounters the facial and flank marks on inanimate objects in the core part of the territory, they signify that this location has been safe in the past and when a cat leaves another face or flank mark, it is relabelling that place as safe based upon its current experience. The odours that cats share when allogrooming and allorubbing help to identify the group so that these and the core territory odours are a memento of previous interactions. Other odour marks are intended to enable cats to maintain distance from one another. Both claw marks and urine spray marks contain pheromone chemical signals that are intended to signal to cats outside the social group that they are entering an area that is also occupied by other cats. The home range that surrounds the core territory is quite large and is intensely defended. Beyond this home range, the wider territory controlled by the cat or cat group may be very large. Feral and wild cats may hold territories that are more than 1-2 square miles. However, it is clear that cats may need to pass through areas of each other’s territory and the boundaries are not absolute. Claw and urine marks are therefore intended to warn other cats to avoid certain locations at certain times so that they do not come into conflict with each other. This works well when there is a large enough territory for the different types of odour marks to be deposited in a meaningful way that allows the cats to avoid potential enemies and remain close to their affiliates. Natural social groups are made of related female cats and juveniles, with adult males and surplus females being displaced from the group at maturity. Intact males will range over much larger territories, visiting different groups of females to mate.

DOMESTIC/Territory Contrast this with the situation in the domestic environment. Pet cat groups are made up of unrelated and neutered males and females with widely differing rearing backgrounds. Some may come from a genetic and rearing background that does not favour sociable living in a group. From the owner’s perspective, the expectation is that the cat’s core territory will match the internal living space of the home, so that facial and flank marking are seen indoors and spraying or claw marking is only performed outdoors. However, instead of being one large contiguous area, each domestic cat’s territory may consist of several small patches that are distant from each other. Each cat is forced to travel across several other cat’s territories in order to get to a latrine or hunting site. This increases the amount of feline traffic through gardens and increases the likelihood that each cat’s core territory will be overlooked by cats outside. If underfed, despotic or intact male cats enter the homes of resident cats then this further undermines the perception of the owner’s home as ‘core’ territory.

So several scenarios emerge. If the core territory is threatened by being overlooked or invaded by cats that are not part of the group, then the boundary of the core territory can retreat into the house and the resident cat[s] will use spray or claw marks to delineate a boundary at the edge of the core territory which happens to be within the home. These cats may end up inhabiting the upper rooms of a house as core territory and then spray marking or middening on the ground floor, but the situation often starts when urine marks appear at windows or external doors, or around the cat flap.

If the relationship between cats within the home is flawed, then, rather than one group, there may be two or more factions coexisting within the home. They may have little tolerance for each other. Most domestic cat groups are of mixed gender and are not actively engaged in mutual kitten rearing, so that there is no positive reason for the cats to coexist other than their own individual social preferences and affiliations. The continued function of the group is highly dependent on whether present resources are plentiful enough to maintain the whole group without competition. Within domestic cat groups sharing a home it is possible to identify patterns of interaction by analysing greeting, affiliative and aggressive behaviour between cats [see example diagram].

SOCIAL GROUPS/STRUCTURE

Groups can contain several types of individuals and sub-groups:

Cliques or Factions: groups or 3 or more cats that show greeting and other affiliative behaviour towards each other, but may be aggressive to other members of the domestic group.

Pairs: Pairs of cats, often littermates, that greet and show affiliative behaviour towards each other.

Social facilitators: These cats will often offer and receive greetings and affiliative behaviour with cats from several factions or cliques. They may also associate with other cats outside the group and serve to maintain group odour between individuals and sub-groups that rarely interact directly with each other.

Satellite individuals: These offer and receive little or no greeting or affiliative behaviour with the other cats in the home. They may be involved in minor or passive aggressive incidents with other cats in the group, often as the recipient of threat.

Despots: These individuals may deliberately monopolise resources and create opportunities to intimidate other cats in, and outside the home.

Identifying the social structure of the group may give insights into why the relationship between resident cats has broken down. For example, the loss of a social facilitator cat may cause aggression to begin between factions because no other individual is maintaining the group odour. The same situation can occur when the owner goes away on holiday or when a social facilitator becomes ill or infirm. The role of a particular individual may change according to its health status. A pair or faction may break up if one cat suffers from pain, hyperaesthesia or some other condition that changes its acceptance of grooming or affiliative behaviour. It may change to become a satellite individual. A polyphagic hyperthyroid or diabetic cat may consume more food or despotically control access to it, leaving the rest of the group resource deficient. Investigating and treating marking problems that relate to social difficulties between cats can be demanding.

Typical Causes

• Loss of core territory facial or flank marks: Usually due to redecoration or change of house.
• Loss of maintenance of group odour: Temporary or permanent loss of a social facilitator cat, absence of the owner, or housing of group members apart [at a cattery] so that odour is not mixed between individuals and factions.
• Failure of odour recognition of a specific individual: Individual odour may be altered or lost if a cat is taken away for grooming or veterinary treatment such as dental work. The cat may also return home with the odour of an unfamiliar cat on it. The returning cat may be regarded as an intruder. This causes aggression or the cat may never regain its previous role in the social group.
• Introduction of a new cat: This may exceed the population that can be supported by existing resources, or the new cat may upset existing social relationships [through despotism, competition or by increasing stress in the group]. The same effect is apparent when a recently introduced kitten reaches maturity.
• Illness: Conditions that alter the cat’s emotional state or interaction with other cats [[[Hyperthyroidism, senility, pain, hyperaesthesia, debilitation]]] or need for resources [conditions causing polydipsia or polyphagia].
• Excessive population density outside the home: existing overpopulation, new cats introduced to an area, or when a cat owner moves a group of cats into a new home in an area where many cats already live.
• Unfamiliar odours brought into the house: non-resident cats may spray close to a front or garage door so that this odour seeps into the house. Owner’s shoes, clothing or bags may pick up odours from outside.