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Cats + Behavior & Training

  • Cat: Scratching

    With a good understanding of cat behaviour and a little bit of effort, it should be possible to prevent or avoid most scratching problems, even for those cats that live exclusively indoors.

  • Cat: Travel Related Problems

    Cats are highly attached to territory, and movement away from that secure base is not something that is undertaken lightly! Travelling in cars, planes and other forms of human transport can be a very stressful experience for all concerned, not least because the cat is no longer in control of its own experience.

  • Cat: Unwanted Vocalisation

    Most owner complaints about feline vocalisation are either to do with the intensity and persistence of the vocalisation, or the fact that it occurs at night, when family members or neighbours are trying to sleep.

  • Cat: Urine Marking

    When cats deposit small squirts of urine on vertical surfaces, it is known as urine spraying. This is a scent marking behaviour rather than an act of elimination.

  • Dogs & Cats: Systematic Desensitisation

    Systematic desensitisation is a behavioural modification method used to reduce an animal's emotional response to a given object or situation.

  • Excess Thirst and Urination

    These are non-specific clinical signs and can be caused by many different conditions and diseases.

  • Guidelines for Taking Your Cat to the Vet

    Cats are very strongly bonded to their environment and any change is likely to result in significant stress. If we consider the changes that we are enforcing on a cat when we take it to the vet, it is hardly surprising that many cats are very stressed by the time they arrive at the veterinary practice.

  • Indoor Spraying in Cats

    Urine spraying is part of the cat's normal scent-marking behavioural repertoire which also includes scratching, rubbing, chinning, bunting (depositing secretions from head glands on twigs etc., and middening (leaving faeces uncovered).

  • Indoor Toileting Problems in Cats

    Indoor marking behaviour can be confused with a breakdown in toileting behaviour.

  • Kitten Socialisation and Habituation

    Socialisation is the process by which the kitten learns about its own identity, the identity of its own species and the identity of the other species with which it will share its life. Appropriate socialisation enables the kitten to go on to develop relationships with other living beings in its environment.