Hi everyone:
I am a newbie & I am now in a very difficult situation. Those who have experiences with spraying cats, pls help me! This post might be a bit long but I want to be clear so catlovers with relevant experience could chime in.
In Dec last yr someone threatened to euthanise his two white adult cats if nobody wanted them. I took in the two white cats because I gave them to him as kittens which I picked up off the street in mid-2005. Pls do not laugh. I had no knowledge about the proper introduction of cats. My two resident cats, Baby & Felicity, were tame & so were the two newcomers. All four had free run of my shoebox apt. Eventually I knew they were stressful because they became destructive & every morning I woke up to a warzone. I also knew 4 cats in a shoebox apt meant trouble but was unable to rehome the newcomers. Then one early morning in Feb I heard Baby screaming while being chased. I DID NOT intervene because I knew for certain nobody would be harmed physically. I woke up to find a limp Baby but I simply thought she was just scared stiff. She didn't have wounds or anything. I put her in a safe place & promptly got out to lunch & thought no more of it. I came home in the evening to find Baby in her own pool of urine & immeidately brought her to a 24hr animal clinic. It was too late. Baby had a stroke & died a few days later. She was relatively young at 13.
I am no spring chicken myself & have recently retired. But the image of her turning from a cat to a pile of bones upon cremation is an image that will be forever etched in my memory. I had sacrificed Baby to save the two new white cats.
Since Baby went to hospital, Felicity has been spraying & crying day & nite. I tried Feliway but found it effective only on the two white cats. But I am still hoping as it is still early days. My vet suggested spaying Felicity as well as the unspayed new female cat. But there is no guarantee that the spraying would stop because it has been over a month since the spraying appeared & it might have been ingrained to become a habit.
I am now remorse-filled since Baby should have been still around had I just got out of bed to intervene the catchase. So now I have decided to pull out all the stops to save Felicity. I have been spending more time with the cats. I have the Feliway diffuser on. The two unspayed females will be spayed next week. Fortunately it is not very difficult to urine-proof my shoebox apt. I line most of the furniture with plastic. And everytime I come home I immediately change & put my things in my bedroom, which together with the guestroom & kitchen, are offlimits to all cats.
I wonder if anyone has any experience in this area. Is there a chance of a spraying cat suddently stop spraying a few years down the road? Will my only options be euthanising Felicity or resigning to live in a huge cat latrine for the next decade(Felicity is 7)? In this part of the world, adopting an adult cat is unheard of. Even a kitten has very little chance of being adopted. So rehoming is out of the question. Pls enlighten me if anyone has any ideas. TIA.
I am a newbie & I am now in a very difficult situation. Those who have experiences with spraying cats, pls help me! This post might be a bit long but I want to be clear so catlovers with relevant experience could chime in.
In Dec last yr someone threatened to euthanise his two white adult cats if nobody wanted them. I took in the two white cats because I gave them to him as kittens which I picked up off the street in mid-2005. Pls do not laugh. I had no knowledge about the proper introduction of cats. My two resident cats, Baby & Felicity, were tame & so were the two newcomers. All four had free run of my shoebox apt. Eventually I knew they were stressful because they became destructive & every morning I woke up to a warzone. I also knew 4 cats in a shoebox apt meant trouble but was unable to rehome the newcomers. Then one early morning in Feb I heard Baby screaming while being chased. I DID NOT intervene because I knew for certain nobody would be harmed physically. I woke up to find a limp Baby but I simply thought she was just scared stiff. She didn't have wounds or anything. I put her in a safe place & promptly got out to lunch & thought no more of it. I came home in the evening to find Baby in her own pool of urine & immeidately brought her to a 24hr animal clinic. It was too late. Baby had a stroke & died a few days later. She was relatively young at 13.
I am no spring chicken myself & have recently retired. But the image of her turning from a cat to a pile of bones upon cremation is an image that will be forever etched in my memory. I had sacrificed Baby to save the two new white cats.
Since Baby went to hospital, Felicity has been spraying & crying day & nite. I tried Feliway but found it effective only on the two white cats. But I am still hoping as it is still early days. My vet suggested spaying Felicity as well as the unspayed new female cat. But there is no guarantee that the spraying would stop because it has been over a month since the spraying appeared & it might have been ingrained to become a habit.
I am now remorse-filled since Baby should have been still around had I just got out of bed to intervene the catchase. So now I have decided to pull out all the stops to save Felicity. I have been spending more time with the cats. I have the Feliway diffuser on. The two unspayed females will be spayed next week. Fortunately it is not very difficult to urine-proof my shoebox apt. I line most of the furniture with plastic. And everytime I come home I immediately change & put my things in my bedroom, which together with the guestroom & kitchen, are offlimits to all cats.
I wonder if anyone has any experience in this area. Is there a chance of a spraying cat suddently stop spraying a few years down the road? Will my only options be euthanising Felicity or resigning to live in a huge cat latrine for the next decade(Felicity is 7)? In this part of the world, adopting an adult cat is unheard of. Even a kitten has very little chance of being adopted. So rehoming is out of the question. Pls enlighten me if anyone has any ideas. TIA.