Showing posts with label cat territory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cat territory. Show all posts

Tuesday, 26 October 2021

Classic stand-off between resident cat and invading cat

This is a classic stand-off between a resident cat, the orange cat that you see in the video, and an invading cat which is the grey-and-white cat. The resident cat wins the stand-off. It's entirely classic and normal and the intention is to avoid a fight which would harm both of them. Common sense dictates that they don't want to be harmed if it can be avoided. 

Apparently these two meet frequently like this and on every occasion the resident ginger wins the argument. This is probably because he is the resident cat. It's his territory and the grey-and-white knows it. If the roles were reversed I would expect the grey-and-white to win the argument. 

Although, of course, you get cats who are inherently more dominant and those that are inherently more submissive in the same way you get cats that are more confident and those that are more timid. This would be a factor in who wins this kind of stand-off argument.



Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.


ASSOCIATED: Cat ear positions.

You can hear this strange yowling sound which has bemused people in the past but thanks to the Internet it is now understood. It's just a close-range sound to intimidate the other. You'll note that the ears are pulled back slightly. They are not pulled all the way back to fully protect them. I think this is because they probably both knew that they were not going to physically fight because of the fact that they've met before under similar circumstances and know the outcome.

ASSOCIATED: Do domestic cats fight to the death?

The video was made in the town of Gudauta in the Republic of Abkhazia, Georgia. She must have sent the video into the Daily Mail newspaper who pay for videos. It was made by student Salima Sanguliya, 20, who is the caregiver of the ginger cat, Simon.

She gets very close to the cats at one time which I think was unwise because there was lots of aggression on display and one of them might have redirected it against her.

Sunday, 4 April 2021

Do cat siblings get along?

Do cat siblings get along? It is an important question. On the face of it, if a person adopts two siblings from the same litter when they first adopt a cat they give each cat an instant companion for life. This can take a load of responsibilities away from the cats' owner because they can entertain themselves. 

Domestic cats are social creatures despite what you read on the Internet about them being independent and solitary. Over 10,000 years of evolution in domestication they had developed into far more social creatures which means they need companionship which in turn means that their human guardian should be around. Sometimes they can't be around because of work commitments which is when a cat companion steps up to the plate.

Lykoi cat siblings
Lykoi cat siblings. Photo: Brittney Gobble.


So the question as to whether cat siblings get along can be vitally important. And the answer is yes and no. When they are kittens and sub-adults they do get along. They entertain each other and play-fight with each other. The world is perfect if they are in the right home. But when they grow up and become individuals with better developed characters they can start to dislike each other. They may be incompatible. The relationship cools and they drift apart. Sounds familiar?

I do not have statistics on the percentage of siblings who are compatible or incompatible. But there is quite a good chance that they will be incompatible so you can't bank on adopting siblings in the expectation that they will get along for the rest of their lives. This means the policy of a double adoption of kittens from a shelter might not work.

That does not mean you can't adopt two rescue cats from a shelter who are adults. In fact there is an advantage to adopting two adult cats that need to get along because you know that they get along. The shelter staff will be able to assess this and tell you. The cats have been tried and tested. Their characters have matured so if they do get along it will likely be permanent.

I remember when I adopted my cat from an animal rescue centre, the organiser told me that cat siblings do not get along. She must have had a bad experience in adopting siblings herself. Or she had noticed that within the shelter siblings were fighting. She was partly right. Sometimes they don't, as mentioned, but they might and they often do. It's down to personalities.

But once they become adults they like to establish their home range. In the wild when kittens become adults and leave the natal nest they go out into the big wide world and establish their home range i.e. their territory. They want their piece of landscape and if they are in a home together they might be fighting over that territory. Or they might fight over some of the assets such as food and the litter tray.

And if they are incompatible they may urinate inappropriately, they may defecate inappropriately or they may spray urine and finally they may scratch furniture and walls to mark territory. So it will be a bad scene despite best intentions.

I think that the only surefire way of knowing if two cats will get along is by trying it out. That's why I think cat shelters should allow adopters to take a cat back to their home where there is a resident cat for a week to see what happens. They should be open to the possibility of the cat being returned. That should be part of the contract. It may be possible in some cat shelters. I don't know of any other way to deal with this very difficult question of multi-cat homes. Perhaps I'm being too negative because I know their are some very successful homes in which there are several cats.

And when you think about it in this instance domestic gas are being no different to human beings. How many dysfunctional families do you know? How many human siblings do you know who fight with each other because who dislike each other? It is very common for human siblings not to get on.

I myself don't get on very well with my brother and I never got along with my late sister. We were quite different characters. Hell, I didn't even get on with my parents that well either.

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Why Does a Tomcat Spray Urine On the Garden Wall?

Tomcats (this word is usually used to describe a male cat that has not been castrated) mark their territory by squirting a jet of urine backwards onto vertical objects within their environment.


They aim their urine at tree stumps, fence posts, bushes and walls which are landmark features within that territories. Sometimes these features are at the borders of their territory and sometimes they might be at a crossroads but they would usually be in some sort of prominent area and possibly on a path or track that is used by the tomcat and other cats in the area.

They are particularly keen on places where they have sprayed before and where other cats have sprayed before so that they can add a fresh dose of urine to freshen the smell.

We all know that cat urine is very strong smelling and very hard to remove. It is interesting that although cat urine is very strong smelling to a human, another way that a cat marks his territory is by rubbing against objects to leave his scent on the object. We cannot smell this odour.

The odour of a cat's urine fades gradually and the degree of fading is indicative of when it was deposited. This provides a message to a cat who sniffs it telling him or her about the movements of the cat who deposited the urine.

In short, deposited urine on vertical surfaces provides information to cats about what is going on. Apparently, the smell also carries information about the emotional state of the sprayer and the individual's identity so there is some variation in the smell between cats. A sprayer in effect leaves a calling card and leaves a message to other cats who pass by.

It makes no difference to the act of spraying whether a cat wants to urinate or not. Urination and spraying are quite separate behaviours. You will even see cats that have no urine still going through the motions of spraying and marking territory even though no urine is actually involved.

Neutering both male and female cats reduces the incidence of spraying but may not eliminate it. Personally, my cats have never sprayed. The other day, I saw a Siamese cat outside my flat spraying  onto a bush next to a flowerbed. It is the area where the Siamese cat likes to frequent and to urinate and defecate. Clearly, another cat had visited the area and the Siamese cat was just topping up the marker to make sure that her message was loud and clear.

Friday, 18 May 2012

Most Common Cat Behavior Problems

A discussion about the most common cat behavior problems. First we must recognise the fact that cat behavior problems are problems from the point of view of people. Often a behavior problem is normal behavior for a domestic cat that a person does not like; not strictly speaking a cat behavior problem. In fact, that is the default scenario. I know that obvious fact is hard for some people to digest, but it's true.

My research indicates that it is difficult to rank cat behavior problems as there is not enough widespread available research. In any case if the true problem is about our perceptions, likes and dislikes, all we are doing is ranking what we don't like about domestic cat behavior.

In no particular order the most common cat behavior problems referred to Pet Behavior Counsellors (APBC), a UK organisation were:
  • Indoor marking behavior - this will be spraying urine and depositing feces. Feces are used by wild cat species to mark territories. Domestic cats can do it too from time to time for various reasons.
  • Aggression towards people. This is particularly unhelpful as often aggression towards a person will be defensive in nature. Accordingly it might be argued that the aggression as caused by the person.
  • Aggression towards other cats. This was complained about half as much as aggression towards people. Once again the root cause of this form of cat behavior problem might be traceable back to the person who looks after the cats. If he or she introduces a cat into a multi-cat household that upsets the hierarchy leading to inter cat aggression it could be said that the problem is a human one.
  • Difficulties with house training.
  • Attention seeking.
  • Self-mutilation (one cause: separation anxiety). This is often caused by stress and stress can be caused by an inappropriate environment created by a person. The point I keep making is that cat behavior problems are not free-standing but often a reaction to something we did.
  • Of the purebred cats the Siamese and Burmese (related cat breeds by the way) were the most represented in respect of cat behavior problems. This does not automatically mean that these breeds are the worst behaved. It might mean there are more Burmese and Siamese cats in circulation. They are popular cat breeds especially the Siamese.
A study published in 2000  and 2001 (Bradshaw et al and Casey respectively) compared:
  1. data collected from questionnaires given to English people living in the south of England with:
  2. a diagnostic review from the USA.
Certain cat behavior problems were "over-represented" meaning occurring more than average. These were:
  1. House soiling which includes inappropriate elimination and marking. Inappropriate elimination is a litter box/stress problem while marking is deliberate territory marking and
  2. Aggression towards people and other cats.
Cat behavior problems that were under-represented were scratching and fearful behavior.

The studies produced different results to the APBC referrals. This is partly put down to differences in cat caretaker knowledge of cat behavior. Also people will seek help for problems such as house soiling as it causes a lot of disruption in a person's home.

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Why did the crow provoke the cats?

This is a strange video in which a crow provokes and agitates two cats to the point where they fight each other. There is no doubt that the cats were into a territorial dispute anyway. But it seems to me that the crow pushes them both into fighting sooner and more viciously. These cats certainly fought hard and risked serious injury. The black cat is bigger and won the fight. We don't know what happened to the red cat. He may have been hurt.



An animal only does something if it is to his or her advantage. So what advantage is there in having two cats fight over territory? I can think of only one right now having just seen the video.

Cats attack birds as a prey item, as food. If there are two cats in one area the crow has two predators to deal with. If they fight each other, one cat wins and the other leaves the territory leaving one predator for the crow. The crow has an easier life on the assumption that he stays in the area which might be the case as he probably has a source of food there.

Crows are very smart animals and I would have thought that that sort of reasoning is within his or her capabilities.

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