Spade cat in heat

Question
I have a female that was spade 5 years ago, she is nine years old. This winter she acts like she is in heat. We live in the country and she is an outside cat.  Lately all the male cats have been coming around and she submits to them for breeding. Is this normal? She calls to them and if she is in garage at night she cries to get out.What is going on?

Answer
Pam,

I am not a vet, but two things come to mind.

(1) If anyone in the household is on a hormone cream, and your cat is licking it from the skin, she can go into season.

(2) If the vet who spayed your cat was a country vet, sometimes they do not quite get everything because they are not used to working on such a small animal (relatively), so there could still be hormone activity even though the cat is spayed. However, I would not think the hormones would suddenly manifest after 5 years.

You can take your kitty to your vet and have them test the hormone levels. In a nutshell, thuis is not normal.

Best regards... Norm.