Cat Chat Feline Forum

Hi there

We have three cats who get on ok. We recently went on holiday leaving someone to come and feed/spend time with the cats. They were all fine when we got back but one of them has since started spraying in the house. We have tried everything to stop/deter it. He seems fine apart from this but it's gotten to the stage he will walk into a room, stare at us and spray on the wall. We've avoided negative behaviour towards him when he does it but we don't know what else to try. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I'm not an expert at this, but he's obviously feeling stressed at what's happened. Is there anything else that might be stressing him? Perhaps try a Feliway plug-in and use biological washing detergent to remove the smell of where he's sprayed. Don't use bleach, as it smells like urine to cats and can encourage them to spray even more. Hopefully more posters will be able to advise.

Thanks for your reply. I've no idea what's stressing him, they've been left before. I'll try feliway to see if that makes a difference. I've not used bleach, just a special cleaner from pets at home. Thanks for your help!

Can you ask the cat sitter if something out of the ordinary happened whilst you were gone. It may have been an accident such as dropping something resulting in a loud noise, tripping over the cat? Was it always the same person that came to visit, did they come as regularly as they said they would? Had they been elsewhere beforehand and your cat could smell it?

Anything that may seem remotely small and totally daft to us but could have had an impact on the cat?

But in the meantime as Crewella says, try Feliway or Zylkene or Bach remedy. Fingers crossed he'll soon be back to normal

And one final question - is he neutered?