How to Stop a Male Cat From Spraying

Let's talk about how to prevent your male cat from spraying. This can be actually quite challenging, and the first thing you have to do is figure out what is going on, and get a diagnosis from a veterinarian. The spraying can be generally one of two things. A; a cat that's a male that is spraying, we've got to know; first off, is it a neutered cat?

If it's not neutered, that's the first thing to do. Number two is a urinalysis needs to be performed to figure out is there an infection or inflammation occurring that's causing him to feel like he needs to urinate outside of the box. For instance, cat's are pretty smart, and what they'll do sometimes is if if their urine or urination hurts them in a litter box, they think the litter's doing it, so they will go outside of the box and spray; versus, if the urine does not contain an infection or anything like that, it's probably behavioral. So, working with your veterinarian, you have to figure out what that problem is. If it's behavior, is it another cat in the environment? Is it not enough litter boxes?

Not the right litter? Not a hood on the litterbox? And so there is lots of information that your veterinarian can provide for you to help you figure out what that problem is and how to treat. Now, some cats, some male cats that are behaviorally spraying and behaviorally urinating outside the litter box can be psychological, and there are actually synthetic hormones; pheromones actually, that are used to spray an environment that can calm these male cats down. That can work quite well. Sometimes we rely on anti-depressive medication, such as Prozac, Elavil, things like that to help these cats kind of calm down and forget why they're spraying, and after a while most of these guys do very, very well, and you can stop the medications.