Since so many of you have pets, I have a stupid question to ask. My daughter has a spayed female that we keep outside. A young male cat recently decided he lived here, and has been spraying his territorial marker scent all around the front of the house. He'd lay down RIGHT by the front door, meow all the time for attention, etc.

Since we couldn't feed Ing's cat without feeding THIS guy, and since he was just too friendly for words, I called the local animal service to see what could be done. They said they would pick him up and find a home for him. Last night I put him into a pet carrier and he's waiting on the front porch for this agency to open so I can call. My arm looks fine this morning. The swelling, and itchy welts have gone away from where he scratched and I suppose just general cat fur exposure caused reactions.

My question is: Does a spayed cat still "attract" male cats? Do spayed females still have sex? Could it be that this young male saw her as more a "mother" figure? Okay....MORE than one question there.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 08, 2000

Answers

The lowest cat in the pecking order of cats is the spayed female. The highest is the unspayed male. What ya got here isn't a romantic interlude, it's a dominance thing. He has decided that your property is his, and kitty there, she can't do anything about it. He probably owns every house on your block! Spayed females don't attract male cats, and they aren't objects d'amour. He just wanted in on the food and good livin' and attention that came with your home.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), March 08, 2000.

hmmmm. I'll have to post my reference to a great cat psychology book when I get home.

No, spayed females really are fixed. (Ginger was the first female I ever knew in her natural form. I let her settle in for a couple months before I had her spayed. Human PMS has nothing over what cats go through. She was a walking gland.) There are residual mating behaviors, like neck biting, but I see them in a more aggressive context.

With the male being so friendly, sounds like he must have been a pet. Hope he finds a good home. I don't know what the situation is in TX, but here in MA you DON'T mess with stray cats. You should find out whether having been scratched could be a problem in your area. (If rabies is an issue, you have at least 10 days to start getting the shots.)

I have seen strays be extremely opportunistic. The smart one figure out that back doors can mean food, and that ingratiating themselves increases their chances.

When I got Ginger and Bandit, Ginger was may 3 or 4 years old, and Bandit was still growing, perhaps 8 months. Bandit very much saw Ginger as a mother figure and for quite a while tried to nurse on poor Ginger. Bandit eventually outgrew that, and it's just my guess that if the male is so territorial, that he isn't regarding Ing's cat as a mother figure. Perhaps Git has some ideas.

Good luck!

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 08, 2000.

I KNEW you folks would have all the answers!

I called the animal service and they'll be out to pick him up. I wouldn't have had to tangle with him so much had I not wanted him face forward in the carrier, meaning I had to back him in.

I have only ONE teeny scratch on my arm today. I'm so allergic that my whole arm swelled up and welted last night, so I couldn't TELL how bad the scratches were.

This will be one down and about 3 more to go. The other cats are wild, though, and will run as soon as we approach, making them much less bothersome than this little guy who thought he lived here.

Thanks for the information!

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 08, 2000.

Gee, I can't even IMAGINE successfully backing my kitties into their crates! (Of course, they wouldn't expect that either, so maybe there would a slight advantage.... nah....)

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 08, 2000.

That's your experience speaking, Brooks. I have none. The way I saw it, the FRONT of the carrier had the grate [as in providing both air and visual ability] while the back had a blank wall. I didn't know if there was room enough for him to turn himself around, but I DID know that I wouldn't want to spend the night facing a wall with my backside to the "visual" side.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 08, 2000.

Anita, you're certainly right that being able to peer out the grate would be less traumatic for him. My cats only go in their crates when they go to the vets, so they have no incentive to cooperate. I used to put them in the same large dog crate, but then Bandit put on a whole lot of weight, and she tended to lose her breakfast, which made the experience especially unpleasant for Ginger.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 08, 2000.

They came and got him...transferred him to a cage about the same size that was airy at all ends. I watched as he turned himself around about 6 times. For some reason the "Oh what a fool I am" tune is playing in my head right now.

We also discussed my little scratch. The guy wanted to know if it bled or not when I got it. [Duh...I don't THINK so.] I washed my whole arm right away to get the cat dander off to lower the swelling. He DID say that had it bled, they would be required to put the cat in quarantine for 10 days before putting him up for adoption. He didn't think we had to do that based on my my report.

All's well that ends well.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.com), March 08, 2000.

Congratulations! Thanks for sharing the story with us.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 08, 2000.

Any scratch should be cleaned thoroughly. Soaking in warm water with liquid dish soap is usually pretty good. Remember about cats' toilet habits and that they always scratch around in the litter, so there is plenty of opportunity for infection.

I had a friend who got an ailment called "cat scratch disease". It is not common but is very painful and takes some time to treat. He was hospitalized for some time, don't recall how long.

Male cats pee on everything. They don't seem to mind hanging around a place that smells terrible. Must be a guy thing. Not.

There is no easy way to put a cat in a carrier. It's best to have them outnumbered and sedated.

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), March 08, 2000.

I'm new on this line, but I thought I'd suggest that anyone wanting to aviod trouble getting their cat to go into a carrier has to train them when they are kittens. I came by my son's cat, {my son moved to another country.} He trained him so well that we just bring the carrier out of the closet and he walks in and sits down!! I think my son used catnip or food at first, I'm not sure but I will ask him and get back to you. It might be useful for someone who has just aquired a kitten. > Yolanda.

-- yolanda (ronandyolanda@sprint.ca), March 14, 2000.

Anita...

.....When one comes spraying around my house, I just spray back... with double ought.

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), March 15, 2000.

Anita:

Did you say that you have more cats to catch? It might be wise to acquire live traps (sometimes they are available at the vet or Humane Society). These are bated with food or catnip and when the animal enters it trips a latch and the door drops. It doesn't hurt the animal and the human is safe also.

Jean

-- Jean Shenker (jps@linkfast.net), March 20, 2000.

Jean:

The answer is "Yes" and "No." There are about three cats who come around once in a while. I don't see them as much as my SO, but I do notice that before my daughter's cat sits down to eat, she looks behind her. The bottomline is that they're not much of an annoyance. Personally, I doubt they'd even make good pets at this point. They've been running wild now for at least a year and a half [when we moved here], probably longer.

In addition to these 3, one of our neighbors recently moved. His cat is still here somewhere and another neighbor has been recruited to catch him. That neighbor has one of the traps you describe, and another neighbor has offered us one, as well. I'm not interested in going through the trouble, myself. They run when I say "Shoo", and that's more than the little friendly guy did. They also don't spray the front porch like he did. I don't know if SO is willing to go to the trouble. I suspect he'd rather complain that my daughter's cat is the attraction. Daughter is talking about taking an apartment with a friend again. We'll see if this plan falls through like the previous ones, or if this one will actually work out.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 21, 2000.

My daughter is moving, and the cat's already gone. [sniff, sniff...I miss them both ALREADY.]

Ing will spend the night here tonight, but she's moved an extra bed to the apartment she once shared with a friend and several others, as well as the other large furniture she had stored here. [My office looks pretty blank without that tacky loveseat of hers, but that blank space provides the impetus to vacuum this room.]

With any luck, the strays will go elsewhere now that there's no attraction.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), April 21, 2000.

Anita, as long as you don't give them any food, water or shelter, they won't stick around too long (hopefully)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 21, 2000.