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Managing Behavioral Problems in Cats: Urine Marking

  • Mar 24, 2020
  • 2 min read

Updated: Jan 23, 2024

Feline marking and spraying is incredibly difficult to deal with. Not only is it stressful for the owner, but the cat as well.


Most of the time, owners will surrender their cats for this reason (actually its a top reason that cats are surrendered).


So, what can we do to manage this behavior?



Unfortunately, cats can be very tricky... And behavioral medication is often used in these cases...


Little known fact: common side effects to the most widely used behavioral medications in cats, include urinary retention, and constipation.


SO, now we have a potential UTI and crystals from not going to the bathroom, which will likely require RX food and antibiotics. And a hospital stay, for a catheter and/ or nasty enema.... CHA-CHING!

And now the cat is even MORE stressed...


Plus, we didn't even get to the bottom of the REAL issue in the first place.

Which is why, studies show that taking cats off of behavioral medicantions, returned urine marking.




Now, I'm not saying don't ever use medication, because sometimes it is needed and can be helpful... BUT, if we address various issues right off the bat, we have a better chance at getting to the root cause of a problem, instead of just covering it up.


There ARE other options!


One thing we need to always address FIRST is underlying health issues such as urinary infections, pain, etc.


Second, I always look at the cat's stress levels and environment. There's a lot to evaluate, and I explain that more in depth in this post.

**notes shown above are from behavioral seminar.



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2 Comments

Unknown member
Mar 25, 2020

@Danielle it can be either or. I have seen cats do both. However, usually marking on vertical serfaces is in indicative of behavioral.

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Unknown member
Mar 25, 2020

My vet told me that urinating on horizontal surfaces (a bed or chair) is indicative of a medical issue, and on a vertical surfaces, it's usually behavioral. Is that correct?

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