Cat issues

Question
QUESTION: Hi Norman,
I'm writing to you from Pakistan. Landed on one of the questions you've answered very wisely.
So I'm writing to you as a mom of 3 male neutered cats. One is 3 years old and the other 2 are 2 years old. The problem is that one of the 2 year old cats, Tuna, has been spraying all over the house for the past 2 months now. I've taken him to the vet who i feel did not check him properly for UTI or other health issues due to lack of equipment or perhaps experience. Tuna is a tabby who stays indoor only and is on mostly commercial cat food diet (purina cat chow and tin food)
He has also peed twice (besides spraying) on beds and once on a glass dish on our dining table. He seems to love eating fresh grass that i cut and bring in from outdoors. but always wants to run out of the house and we dont let him. Also he gets an erection every now and then and licks it a lot with the tip getting red. he also humps cushions. I also feel that he is very nervous all the time. one vet here advised to put him on anti-depressants so i took another vet's opinion who put him on a ph level medicinal course for a week. Finally another vet gave him hormones injection three days ago. none of this has worked so far and i'm really frustrated. As it is in Pakistan, most people dont take pets seriously... the doctors and pet owners alike. I love my kids and dont want to put him on heavy meds without proper checkup.
Please help me.
thanks
Please tell me what to do.

ANSWER: Zahra,

I am not a vet, but this behavior can be a behavioral thing which may or may not mean there is a hormone imbalance, and your vet SHOULD be able to check this out.

The UTI is the most logical explanation, but the symptoms are not always apparent, so you may want to treat the cat as if there was a UTI, a round of antibiotics and an anti-spasmodic are really not heavy medications. In addition, I would give your cats distilled water to drink. This will help prevent any future UTI's.

How long has Tuna been doing this?  Did it just start or has it been going on for some time. Sometimes changing the brand or type of litter can bring about poor litterbox habits, so you may have to do some investigating to figure out when it began and trying to determine a precipitating event (for example, a new cat hanging around the household).

Please let me know what you discover.

Best regards... Norm.





---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks so much Norman.

You are right. There was a change of litter for a few days because 'Thomas Cat' litter was out of stock in Pakistan for a few weeks and i had to gradually shift to using sand mixed litter for that time. The pet supplies are very limited here and occasionally even the pet food goes out of stock for months.
Tuna has started this behavior about 2-3 months ago (around the time litter was changed) but i'm back to his litter now and clean it twice a day.
Also we live in a small neighborhood and cats do hang out around all the time that all of my cats keep a look out for through windows even from behind dropped blinds. (I also feed a stray female cat outside the house regularly) although seldom, but there is a sense of rivalry at times between 'Kaalu' (my other neutered cat same age of 2 years)

i really appreciate your helping out Norman. I'm going to ask the local Vet to rule out UTI in any case.  Also please tell me if there are any herbal anecdotes to calm cats. I've heard of using chamomile tea mixed in water. I will definitely use distilled water on your advice. please tell me if that should be done regularly or occasionally?

Thanks again
zahra

Answer
Zahra,

I have never found any herbal remedy that helps in marking behaviors or relaxing cats. Sometimes when cats are given something to calm them, it can have the opposite effect.

What you might consider is keeping Tuna by himself in an area where the only litter pan is with his litter and there is no competition for using the litter pan.  When his litter pan behavior is correct, you can move that litter pan out to the normal area and see if he continues the correct behavior.

A couple of things you might also try is having more than one litter pan and having them in different areas of the household.

We use only distilled water for our cats, it is very inexpensive here.

Best regards... Norm.