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Entertaining Crazy Cats

Posted: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 at 8:44:12 AM EST by Cam Day

No Bored Cats

Do cats become bored?   If your cat is a Couch Slouch then boredom may not be a problem but some cats are better described as Party Animal Puss-Cats. Such cats know how to boogie and if they don't get enough brain input, their behaviour can be catastrophic.

Some bored cats show hyperactive behaviours. The most common is that the cat will race through the house like a fur-covered lightening bolt especially at night.

Bored cats also delight in a bit of rough and tumble and if nothing else is available, will happily use your fingers and toes as a chew toys. Commonly, a bored cat will hide under furniture with its eyes as big as dinner plates. As you walk innocently past it will scoot out and latch onto your leg imbedding its claws and teeth in your calf. Just as quickly it will detach and will race down the hallway to hide once more readying itself for another encounter of the furred kind.

Boredom is most common in confined cats and this is a problem because confining cats to the home is becoming much more commonplace  and for many good reasons.

However, inside the house is a sterile environment compared to the joys of wandering freely through the suburbs. The more a cat roams, the more it becomes stimulated by the refreshing newness of its territory and each new joy that the cat discovers is its own reward, stimulating more exploration.

So, how do you cater for the needs of a bored cat?

Provide an Outside Play Gym

Firstly, confined cats are much happier if they are given a semi-outside play gym that they can access via a cat door.

You can make your own enclosure by simply confining a veranda or construct a purpose-built play gym in your garden.

There are also commercial cat enclosures available. One is made from strong netting that, being flexible, enables many variations in design and another system is made from modular cages.

The play gym should include areas for feeding, resting, toileting and exploration but change the 'furniture' regularly to ensure your cat maintains its interest in the cattery.

Cats don't need aerobic exercise to the same extent as dogs and exercise more by stretching, jumping and climbing rather than running long distances. Therefore, in the play gym, elevation is more important than floor space. Cater for this by providing hammock beds and a thick bark-encrusted tree that goes to the roof.

Promote exploration

Because cats need to explore, cater for this need inside your house or in the play gym.

For instance, make a maze from some old cardboard boxes. Have some 'poke and peep' holes in each box. Poke pencils through the holes or pull a piece of string with a paper mouse on the end through the maze. Your cat is likely to chase the mouse, attack pencils placed through the holes and generally have fun exploring. Put some food titbits in the maze to stimulate exploration.

Paper bags scattered around the house also make ideal hidey-holes for a bored cat.

Don't forget a cat scratching post and one with hidey-holes in that too.

On the matter of feeding, why do you bother putting your cat's biscuits into a boring bowl? Instead put them in half-a-dozen cake patty pans of the type used for making cup cakes. Add a flavoured treat like a 'cherry on the cake' inside each patty pan and then hide these in various locations around the house.  Much more sensible!

You can also get timer-activated food bowls, with spring-operated lids, from selected pet stores. Set the food bowl to open in the middle of the day when you are at work but put a bell on the lid. When it springs open the Pavlov's Bell will tell the cat that food is available.

Be devious and place your cat's dry food inside a plastic milk carton with one or two plum-sized holes in it. Let the frantic feline work out how to get its food!

To be even more devious, try putting a rubber band from the base of the carton through to the cap. Place a paddle pop stick or in the rubber band. The paddle pop stick should be long enough to just catch the edge of the milk carton. Wind up the rubber band and when Puss puts is paw in the hole to get the food the paddle pop stick will move a few times. Puss will be fascinated.

Playing Unfair

Play games with your fur-ball but be inventive.

Paper Mouse Mauling is the old, but effective, standard cat game. Attach a paper 'mouse' to a piece of string and drag it through the house. However, some creative folk attach these to a radio-controlled car and drive the mouse around the house and their cat around the bend.

If you have an over-head fan in your house, then providing fun for your cat is easy. Use Blue Tack to attach a length of elastic to the hub of your fan. Place a cork with feathers glued to it on the end of the elastic. Turn the fan onto a slow speed and let your cat chase the cork as it flies around the room. Remove any delicate china first!

A laser pointer will also entertain many a cat and they jump for joy attempting to chase the red dot. However, a word of caution, make sure you don't shine the laser directly at the cat's eyes as that can be dangerous.

If that doesn't satisfy your Puss Cat, visit your local pet shop. You will find a range of cat toys designed to satisfy the most fastidious and fanatic of fractious felines.

Click to go to Aggressive Cat Pet Pick

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Marauding Moggies

Posted: Monday, April 30, 2012 at 11:29:06 AM EST by Cam Day

Curious Cats

They are a free spirit and masters of their own destiny. Being curious creatures, cats will roam wherever they please. But, the roaming of cats is one trait that can certainly cause problems for the owners of the cat, the neighbours of the cat, and the cat itself.

Roaming cats cause community disharmony. They are at risk themselves from injury, both accidental and malicious, and from diseases that they can both catch and spread. They can also harm wildlife such as marsupials, birds and reptiles. On the other hand, they do help to control rodents.

Why do Cats Roam?

Cats roam because they can. What's happening in their neck of the woods is discovered during their reconnaissance missions and they find out what other cats are up to as well. Cats that are not desexed do roam more than their responsibly desexed cousins. The romance-deprived hormones of 'entire' male and female cats will make the moody moggies roam for kilometres looking for a 'like-minded' suitor.

If your cat roams, then having it desexed will keep it at home more.

Cats use their territories in a special way too. They have what is best described as a 'timesharing' arrangement for their overlapping territories. If an overlapping territory is in your back yard, then brawls, noisy caterwauling and the acrid odour of cat urine sprayed around the garden are likely to be common and annoying problems.

What Can Happen if a Cat Roams?

When cats are claiming their land rights, they will fight. This is where injuries and the spread of disease occur.

Due to the stiletto-like shape of a cat's canine teeth and the dangerous bacteria that live in and around the cat's teeth and gums, a bite wound will often result in a Cat Fight Abscess. As they bite, they force bacteria from their teeth under the skin. Pus is produced in the wound and this usually erupts from the bite wound like a volcano when the wound has 'matured' for a few days.

Cat Fight Abscesses are painful for the cat and when they burst, the smell is awful.

Veterinary treatment is essential. A course of antibiotics will usually clear the infection quickly but your cat may need an anaesthetic or surgery.

When it fights, an infected cat will also spread Feline AIDS, an auto-immune disease similar in many ways to human AIDS. Feline AIDS is only transmitted by saliva and, therefore, by the bite of a cat. It is not spread by sexual contact. Because they are more aggressive, entire male cats are much more likely to carry the Feline AIDS virus. The virus is also often found in desexed cats allowed to roam extensively.

If your cat is the victim of another that is roaming, the injuries and the visits to the vet have probably frustrated you. The danger of disease is another worry and the visiting cat is likely to spray urine around your house in its attempts to declare your house and garden as its territory. Even your own cat may be house-soiling or spraying in response to the challenges left by the visiting cat. By soiling inside the house, your cat is attempting to declare your house as its own territory. This makes it feel better and we presume your cat is hoping that the smell will frighten off the other cat.

However, your own cat's reaction to the visiting cat can be extreme. High level anxiety is a common problem and if you have more than one cat, you may find the more anxious cat is transferring its aggression to others that it lives with.

A third problem caused by roaming cats it the effect on non-cat owners. They get justifiably angry about their garden being used as a 'no-man's-land' - an arena used by the neighbourhood moggies for their calamitous clashes. The noise, the odour around the garden beds that the cats may be using as a latrine and the stench of urine spray are intolerable for most non-cat owners.

What can be Done to Prevent a Cat Roaming?

Nowadays, responsible cat owners are doing all they can to control their cat's roaming. Desexing cats when they are young is important but, in addition, many cat owners are deciding to confine their cats inside their homes, either at night or continuously, to prevent roaming.

Some are successful in confining their cats to a room or two inside the house while others choose to allow their cats to roam the whole house but do not allow them outside. However, most cats will be happier if their housing includes a Fun Park on an enclosed balcony or veranda, or a purpose built enclosure in the back yard.

What your cat really wants is a semi-outside area where, via a cat door, it can come inside for kisses, cuddles and food and go outside to satisfy its need for exploration and exercise.

New products on the market make the construction of such an enclosure even easier. One product I have seen is a soft, pre-stretched polyethylene netting that is flexible enough to enclose anything from verandas to whole garden areas, including the trees! The netting is such that it is almost invisible when installed and therefore it doesn't make the house and yard look like a prison.

Cats love to explore - it's in their nature. Our job as responsible pet owners is to ensure that both our pets and the wildlife outside remain safe and free from harm.

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Tags: travelling, roaming, kitten, puss, exploring, outside,

Barking and Biting

Posted: Monday, April 23, 2012 at 10:16:09 AM EST by Cam Day

What dog breeds bark and bite the most?

A multimedia presentation by Dr Cam Day

Yeah, we know - you're cat owners. You own those independent little furballs who would much rather curl up on the wooden floorboards than your warm and comfortable lap. But we thought that you still may find this interesting - it's all about barking and biting dogs, and which breeds do that the most.

Over the last four years we have been looking at the ‘bad breeds’ – those dogs that do ‘bad things’ in the community – because we are referred the ‘worst case behaviours’ of south east Queensland we have always being interested in which dog breeds are the worst for behaviours us humans think are bad.

Of course – our dogs are likely to think what they are doing is quite acceptable!

Barking and biting are bad by our definition, but it's interesting to see which breeds actually bark the most and which bite the most.

That’s not an easy question to answer.

To answer that truthfully we needed to know two things:-

• How to handle cross bred dogs – because there’s nothing wrong with a cross bred.

• And we needed to know what are the most popular breeds in the community. It’s senseless to say the imaginary Australian Cute Hound barks the most if the Australian Cute Hound is also the most popular. The results would not be accurate if we disregarded popularity.

While the details of how we did that are very complex (the details have been published in journals) and too nerdy to describe, we have created an interesting multimedia presentation about just that subject.

This presentation will tell you which dog breeds are most commonly owned and which bark the most and bite the most.

You can view this presentation here and be sure to leave your comments below of your own observations.

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Tags: fighting, aggression, barking, biting, dog, breed, breeds, statistics,

Feline Frolics

Posted: Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 9:42:00 AM EST by Cam Day

Eleven Magic Methods to Amuse Your Manic Moggie

You all know about curiosity and the cat. While many a cat is a lazy Couch Slouch, others are active, curious party animals. When they are out and about, the Party Animal Puss Cats are looking  for a good time. These rascals are set for a night on the tiles, travelling like roaming Romeos looking for mischief in all the wrong places and sticking their noses into other peoples' business.

Even within the home, some cats are devils on four furred feet. Owners regularly report that, as they walk through the house,  their cat will ambush them and will spring like a caged leopard to attack their legs. These cats then run off to hide, their black eyes shining with evil intent.

If your cat fits into the 'party animal' category, giving it things to do apart from ripping living human flesh from passing legs will be of immense benefit.

The Feline Frolics techniques described below will allow you to play with your cat without being attacked. It will also give your cat lots of other things to do in a day to enrich its lifestyle and to blast away boredom. Even for normal, friendly cats, playing games with them and providing a variety of toys and stimuli will give additional richness to their lifestyle. And, if you have decided to confine your Party Animal Puss Cat to the house and/or a garden cattery, the techniques below will compensate for the fact that you feline fiend can't get 'out and about'.

The Feline Frolics List:

1.  Fan Fare

If you have an overhead fan in your house, then providing fun for your cat is easy. Attach a length of elastic with a piece of  folded paper, or a cork with feathers glued to it, to the hub of your fan. Turn it on to a slow speed and let your cat chase the 'clattering paper mouse' as it flies around the room. Remove any delicate china first! As the cat learns the game, move the elastic further out along the blade of the fan so that it moves faster. Just be sure to monitor the game for safety.

2.  Patty Pan Party

Hide titbits of tasty food in and around the house so that the cat has to hunt for them. This appeals to their hunting instinct, stimulates exploration and fortifies the notion that the house is a fun area to be in.

Do this by securing half a dozen paper cake patty pans in various high and low locations around your house. Place a blob of blue-tac under each patty pan so that they don't move.

Now place a small quantity of your cat's normal dry food in each and a 'cherry' on the cake by also including a flavoured dry food treat such as a Whiskas Craver or similar. There are lots of taste varieties 

As the cat mooches around for the food, he or she will find a different reward for their exploratory exploits each time it unearths a new patty pan.

3.  Kong Toys               

Kong Toys are wonderful. They are rubber, cone-shaped 'balls' that resemble the Michelin Man without his arms and legs. Due to their shape, they roll around the floor and bounce unpredictably. Cats find that stimulating. The Kong also has a hole in the middle. This can be packed with food rewards such as dried liver treats or dried fish or you can smear Anchovette Paste or Liverwurst in the hole. The cat's job is to work out how to get the food out.

4.  Magic Milk Carton  

A milk carton can mimic a Kong Toy. Cut the bottom off a plastic 2 litre milk carton. Open the cap and smear Liverwurst or Anchovette paste inside the lid.

Replace the lid and watch the cat attempt to lick and find the food treat by jumping head first into the milk carton. You can also cut a paw-sized hole or two in the side of a milk carton and place food treats inside. The cat will roll the carton around trying to work out how to get the food out. Try putting a rubber band from the base of the carton through to the cap. Place a paddle pop stick or a feather or two in

the rubber band. The paddle pop stick should be long enough to just catch the edge of the milk carton. Wind it up the rubber band and when Puss puts is paw in the hole to get the food the paddle pop stick will move a few times. Puss will be fascinated.

5.  Frozen Cows

Next time they are on special, buy several lactose-free milk packs from the pet section of your supermarket. Throw them in your freezer. As you leave for work, cut a large slash in the carton and leave it in the cat's food dish. The milk will slowly melt into the dish and provide a delayed release reward for the cat.

6.  The Food Sprinkler

From your pet shop, purchase a Cat Mate automatic pet feeder. There are several similar products, and they all operate on the same principle. They contain a food tray which is sealed with a flap. The flap is controlled by a timer that will open the flap and give access to the food at the time you set. That's interesting for a bored Puss Cat. However there is a deluxe version. Use velcro to fasten the unit upside down under a table or on a beam inside your house. Now place a rubber door mat (the type with big holes in it) under the unit. Why Because when the flap opens some hours after you leave, the food will drop to the mat and sink into the holes. Puss will be delighted with the challenge that you have presented!

7.  Carton maze

Make a maze from some old shoe boxes or other cardboard boxes. Have some 'poke and peep' holes in each box. Poke pencils through the holes or pull a piece of string with a paper  mouse on the end through the maze. Your  cat is likely to chase the mice, attack pencils placed through the holes and generally have fun exploring. Put some food titbits in the maze to stimulate exploration.

8.  Paper Bag Park

Scatter a selection of paper bags around the house. Have holes in them for 'peeping and poking'.

9.  Laser Light Leaping

If you have access to a laser pointer, flash this around the walls to get your cat to chase it. Commercial versions of this are now available for cats. Just be sure not to shine the laser into the cat's eyes.

10.  Weasel Whumping

If you can find one, purchase a wiggly Weasel Ball. These act like a 'virtual-mouse' for your cats. The weasel is attached, by its nose,  to a ball containing a battery, and when turned on, the ball rotates and rolls around the house with the weasel attached, looking like it is being chased. They are made by Dah Yang Toy Industrial Co., Ltd  and are identified with the code number 8038H.

11. Paper Mouse Mauling

This is the old, but effective, standard cat game. Attach a paper 'mouse' to a piece of string and drag it through the house. Some creative folk attach these to a radio-controlled car and drive the mouse around the house. Feathers on corks are also much loved.

If that doesn't satisfy your Puss Cat, visit your local pet shop. You will find a range of cat toys designed to satisfy the most fastidious and fanatic of fractious felines - but meanwhile, don't forget to hug your pet.

Click here to go to the Aggressive Cat Pet Pick

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Tags: cat, food, carton, house, milk, paper, mouse, party, fan, aggression, aggressive cat, manic, moggie, toy,

Feisty Felines

Posted: Friday, April 13, 2012 at 10:04:12 AM EST by Cam Day

Living with the nightmare of brawling cats

Why are cats aggressive to each other? Often its because you have brought a new kitten into the household and the status quo has been unsettled. Sometimes it occurs when a young cat matures and feels the need to declare its territory inside the house.

A behaviour known as transferred aggression often occurs too. A house cat can be angered by sensing another invading cat travelling through its garden. The resident cat becomes over-aroused and will take out its anger on its house mate - or even its owners!

Kittens can also cause problems for themselves. Some are too active for their own good. It is common for a super-active playful kitten to push a serene, established house-cat too far. The peaceful, older puss-cat may not want to play all day long and most of the night too. The kitten's playful prowling and challenging may greatly offend the resident cat and can make it very nervous and anxious.

Aggression between cats can sometimes start instantaneously. However, having been 'released', can then take a long time to resolve. Sometimes it doesn't resolve at all.

Three levels of assimilation with cats.

Level 1 Assimilation

In level 1, the feuding felines shake paws and become bosom buddies again, playing and sleeping together in puss-cat harmony for life.

Level 2 Assimilation

The second is that the pair agree to disagree and share the house without sharing affection. They sleep in separate areas and lead separate but parallel lifestyles. There may be an occasional hiss and spit, but mostly things are tolerable. Indeed, one cat couldn't give a hoot if the other fell of the face of the earth! This is the most common level of assimilation with cats.

Level 3 Assimilation

The third scenario is puss-cat purgatory. The cats hate each other and cannot be in the same room or house or even the garden together. They will aggressively fight and brawl and injuries are common. The best way to manage such cats, at least initially, is to keep them separate from each other.

Aggression between cats in a household can be dangerous. Injuries can occur, including cat fight abscesses, claw and bite wounds, and the stress can result in spraying behaviour too.

So what can you do to resolve such a problem?

The first step is to separate the cats for a few days. This will prevent any further aggression and thereby stop what is called self-reinforcement of this unwanted behaviour. It gives the cats a chance to calm down, to become peaceful, and to forget the animosity they have for each other.

When they are re-introduced the aggression may not show again. Sometimes this is enough to solve the problem. Often it's not.

If aggression is still a problem, then the re-introduction should be done progressively over a few days or even a few weeks. For this you should use a process called successive approximation. The introduction of the cats is broken down into small, manageable parcels. This can be tediously slow so you need to be patient.

Firstly, you should allow the cats to see each other but not to smell or touch each other. This is best done through a window or glass partition.

Observe the progress and if the cats settle down and don't show any fear, anxiety or aggression then you are making progress.

Then second step is to allow the cats to smell each other but not to see each other.

This is easily done using the Feline Facial Towelling Technique. Heat a slightly damp towel, such as a hand towel, in the microwave until it is a comfortable warmth.

Rub this warm towel over the body and especially around the face and cheeks of the least aggressive cat first. Then immediately take the towel to the more aggressive cat and do the same. This should be done in a soothing, gentle and caressing manner.

It is often useful to create a happy mood in the aggressive cat before you do this by feeding it a special 'therapy only' food treat. Select a glorious food treat that the cat will walk over water to receive but that it gets at no other time.

The last step is to take the towel back to the least aggressive cat and finish by giving it a rub once more. In this manner you are sharing the scents of the two cats and especially their personal 'pheromones'. Pheromones are personal chemicals of communication. They have a very powerful effect on the behaviour of many animals. (They are very important in the insect world.)

The Feline Facial Towelling Technique is a gentle method of getting the cats used to each others' smell without them needing to cope with the added complications of seeing each other.

Now for the third step. Try introducing the cats to each other through a mesh security door, a fly screen window or by placing each beastie in a cat cage.

This allows the cats to see, smell and hear each other but, if there are fireworks, no danger is involved.

Cat cages are a useful way of doing this. The cages can gradually be brought closer and closer to each other while the cats' happy moods are maintained.

If the cats are happy to sniff each other through the mesh without friction, then you are progressing well. Allow them to sniff each other for a few minutes each day and if they appear happy you are ready for the big step - putting them together.

While you can throw them into the same room and run away, there are more sensitive ways of proceeding. The easiest is to place the more subordinate cat in a cat cage and allow the other cat to roam free in the same room. If all goes well, the roles can be reversed with the tough guy in the cage and the other free. Again you may need to test the water like this for a few days.

At some stage you are going to have to allow the cats to be free in the same room together. Do this in a 'neutral' room - one that has no special significance for either cat. Be ready with a large towel or net and a water pistol. If either cat goes to attack the other, spray it briefly with the water pistol.

Foreign Territories

For complicated cases of aggression between cats, it is often useful to get the cats out of the home territory and put them in a foreign location where neither has territorial rights. This is usually done in a cattery or a veterinary surgery. The cats can be placed in separate cages, visible to each other, for a while. The next step is for the cattery manager to place the cats into the same cage. As they are in neutral territory, this is often successful. For safety, one can be placed into a transport cage for a while until their reactions are assessed.

Synthetic Feline Pheromones

The spray Feliway is sometimes helpful to reduce cat aggression. Feliway is a synthetic equivalent of the pheromones that cats have in their facial glands. They are 'happy pheromones' and often have an effect similar to that attributed to catnip. To help make the cats more accepting of the cages in the cattery or of each other in the home, Feliway can be sprayed onto prominent surfaces in each location.

Feliway is also available now in a plug-in diffuser that is even easier to use. For supplies of this product, please contact my office.

Further information on pheromones is linked through the menu of this site or use the search function.

Medications for Monstrous Moggies

Processes such as the above are often effective, but in some cases, the feuding felines will not accept each other, no matter what us mere humans throw at them. However there is one trick we haven't used - medication.

There are new anti-anxiety medications on the market which are often effective for these types of problems. The goal is to use such medications for a month or more to make the cat more tranquil and relaxed and to allow them to accept each other's presence. When the medication is stopped, the peace and serenity is often maintained. Please contact me for further advice on such medication or for other relevant techniques.

For more information on how to solve inter-cat aggression, have a look at the Aggressive Cat Pet Pick.

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Tags: aggression, cat, cats, brawling, fighting, aggressive cat, cat fight, assimilation, pheromones, Feliway, medications, feline, Feline Facial Towelling,

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