From: rivkin@watson.bms.com (Teresa Rivkin)
Subject: Male Spraying House - Help!
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 14:37:00 GMT

Help!  I have a 4 year old male cat that was neutered when he was a kitten.  I 
adopted him and his sister when I married their owner, so I have only been 
with them for a little over a year.  While I was dating my husband, the cat 
would occassionally spray in the house where my husband was living at the 
time.  He would punish the cat, but it did not deter the cat from spraying.

A couple of months before we got married, we all (my husband, myself, and the 
two cats) were going to be moving into our new house.  Before we moved, we 
took the male cat to the vet to have him checkeed out for a physical problem 
which may have been causing him to spray the house.  I figured I wanted to get 
the situation well in hand before we moved, because I didn't want him to start 
spraying in the new house.  Well, the cat didn't have any physical problems, 
so the vet put him on a low dosage of valium.

We moved into our new house, and surprisingly enough, neither one of the cats 
had a problem with the move.  They were both very comfortable and right at 
home from the start.  In fact, it seemed that they both loved their new house! 
About a month or so went by in the new house with no incidents, and then the 
male started spraying again, while on the valium.  We called the vet and the 
vet said that is was not unusual to have one or two incidents while on the 
valium, especially since the cat was going through a lot of changes and smells 
with the move and all.  So, we kept the cat on the valium for another two 
months or so.  In that time, there were several incidents of spraying.  The 
worst part was that he had taken to spraying my husbands very expensive 
stereo and speakers.  He's sprayed on both of the speakers and on the 
components in the stereo cabinet themselves!  My husband loves this cat 
dearly, and previous spraying incidents have gone by with the cat being 
punished (basically this consists of a very stern talking to, a couple of 
swats on the backside, and confinement to the bathroom).  However, when the 
cat started spraying the stereo, it hit much closer to home and my husband is 
at his wits end.

We stopped giving the cat valium about 2 months ago because it was not 
stopping him from spraying in the house and we'd rather have a drug-free cat, 
especially if the drugs are not helping.  Anyway, this morning the cat sprayed 
on one of the stereo speakers real good.  My husband is very depressed because 
he is not very happy about this.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions about how we can get the cat to 
stop spraying in the house, especially on the stereo and speakers?  The cat is 
not looking for attention, because he is smothered with it, and we keep the 
litter box clean.  Any suggestions or ideas are greatly appreciated.  We are 
desperate!

Terri Rivkin
Xerox Network System Manager
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Rivkin@bms.com

P.S.  Sorry this was so long, but I figured you all would need the background.
Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats