Keep Your Feline Feeling Fine (Behaviour Problems in Pets)

Member Name: BizzyB

Product:	Behaviour Problems in Pets
Date:	07/02/02 (1039 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Understand your cat better, Approach problems with confidence

Disadvantages: The cost of consulting a behaviourist

I considered being an attention seeker and calling this opinion 'My Pussy Needs Attention' but refrained.

So cats and behaviour problems, let's start.

Many people think cats are a rather simplistic set of creatures. Feed them, pet them, let them out to play and a bed for their 15 hours + a day sleep - a contented cat is really simply to achieve.

Well not so. Cats are like people and all have their own personality traits. Fearful, aggressive, depressed, agoraphobic, and as I've had over 60 cats through foster care here in the last year there are not many behaviour traits I haven't seen! Even my own cats are complex little characters!

On the whole many behaviours don't cause to much disruption or trouble, in fact many are seen as cute such as kneading with their paws, sucking on your earlobes and other such kitten like behaviour some cats retain. Other behaviour is seen as a nuisance such as clawing at furniture but many owners find they can combat this particularly habit by providing a scratching post. But when we get to the more difficult situations such as difficulties with litter training or extreme aggression what can we do?

The importance of understanding cat behaviour came to the fore for me recently with two cats in foster care who have extreme behavioural problems. One is an extremely aggressive cat the other is a 5 year old cat who has never been littered trained and messes on the slab floor of the foster unit. On the whole we have faced behavioural problems with a common sense and persistence approach but with these two cats we were at the end of our tether. It was then that we decided to consult an animal behavourist.

The idea of an animal behavourist interested me but I was somewhat skeptical too. Having been brought up with animals I had full respect for those with an in-depth knowledge of animal behaviour but could their academic knowledge really make practical diffe
rences? Basically was a Pussy Psychiatrist going to change our cats into feline Ally McBeals?

Luckily we were able to see an animal behavourist that someone recommended to us. Indeed that person adopted one of our most difficult cats last year, a cat that self harmed. This cat was so stressed with life he would over groom and scratch his neck and literally gauged skin off to the extent he was prescribed valium to help calm him down. With the stress of adoption he went backwards slightly and showed signs of self harming again and his new owner took him to the behaviourist. Within months of following his plan the cat became more settled, stopped self harming and was taken off medication. This was a route we were willing to take.

Seeing the animal behaviourist has turned out to be one of the most constructive appointments we have ever made and has taught us techniques which will not only help the two cats we were originally worried about but will aide us with all the other myriad of felines that come our way complete with their emotional baggage.

Some of the important basics I learnt were appreciating the cat's experiences and perception of time. Cats don't recognize time. The experience things and remember these experiences when memories are triggered. So such things as feeding, territory, litter training become everyday events that are continually triggered. But what of other memories? Take for instance a cat we recently had in our care. We noticed see had found my plastic box containing newspaper to be recycled, was going in it, shredding it and weeing in there. We decided she must have come from home where people had shredded newspaper to put in her litter tray and the behaviourist said he would bet this was a certainty. When rehomed we told her new owners to be aware of this and not leave paper around. Even four or five years down the line if she came across a paper laid out her memory would click in and she&#
39;d equate newspaper with a toilet area.

This memory trigger also explains the case of our cat with the messing problem. The behaviourist is sure that as a young kitten this cat would have just been placed in a garage etc on a night and has come to associate a cold concrete floor with doing its business. She has no idea of what litter is so why when presented with it should we expect her just to look at it and go 'oh yes I'll poo in there'?! he has given us a number of scenarios to try and reprogram her to see a litter tray as a place to go to the toilet but as we cannot 'de-program' her she will never be homed in a house with a tiled floored as she'd see that and her memory trigger would kick in - concrete=toilet.

The behaviourist also explained that cats cannot be 'de-programmed' of their behaviour but need to be 're-programmed', you cannot get them to block or just their association but have to look to giving them a new association. This is particularly important with aggressive and fearful cats. Aggression and fearfulness can be associated with neglect or abuse, or simply with a frightening situation such as a particular noise, my oldest cat hates the sound of children whizzing past on bikes but is totally fearless of car engines which striked me as odd but know it makes sense as he has obviously had a frightening experience which he equates with that first noise.

To re-program aggressive and fearful cats the behaviourist taught us about body language and approaching the cat. As you'd expect approaching a cat head on is a very aggressive stance to the cat but also consider approaching them from a side. Watch cats fight - they side up on each other so this can also be seen as an aggressive approach. We have been taught to feed the cat so their back is towards us and we can place our hands on their stomach as if we were going to pick them up. Once used to this we were taught techniq
ues to increase their confidence such as giving the cat a treat such as a prawn, lifting the cat up onto a surface just about 1 foot off the ground where there is another treat, then back down to the ground for a final treat. This can be repeated increasing the height of the second surface until the cat is used to be picked up and brought to your waist height.

Once more returning a cats perception of time he explained why spanking and negative reactions to the cat doesn't work. If a cat scratches your sofa and you spank he even 5 seconds later the cat doesn't associate the spank with what he's just done. If a cat messes and you find it even a few minutes later if you return the cat to the area and spank him the cat doesn't think 'oh being hit for pooing here' he just thinks 'I'm being spanked'.

There are so many facets to cat behaviour and I'm not an expert so I cannot begin to write a full account here but I would say this. If you are cat owner and want to learn more about behaviour I would suggest getting yourself one of the many books on the subject, which is fascinating in itself even if your cat is perfect!

If your cat has a problem which you feel requires more help I would suggest you do consider seeing an animal behaviourist. Some quick facts and figures. Seeing a behaviourist is expensive with an appointment usually costing around £70. However, these are long appointments often up to 2 hours. The behaviourist will observe the cat and want to find out as much as possible about them before discussing a plan of action in depth with you. You can also have your cat seen at home but this costs more and home visits are often more applicable for other animals such as horses who may be having difficulties in their environment.

To find your nearest animal behaviourist and more information such as how to become an animal behaviourist, seminars, book, videos etc see The Associa
tion of Pet Behaviour Counsellors' website at www.apbc.org.uk

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