UK parents don't do toilet training. Cats are better toilet trained than kids!

I have decided that it is possible or probable that the UK's domestic cats are better toilet trained than reception-aged schoolchildren in this country. The shocking headline from The Times is that parents 'don't do toilet training' with the result that 90% of teachers of reception-age children say that nine in ten had a child in their class who wasn't toilet trained.

What do these kids do? Do they poop and pee where they sit at their desks? Or do they put their hand up and asked teacher something like this: "Teacher, I want to have a pee. Can you tell me how to use a toilet?"

It's completely bonkers. A survey by the early years charity Kindred found that of 50% parents believe that they should not have full responsibility for toilet training their children. It would appear that these parents need or want to rely on others, usually teachers to help train their children how to use the toilet. What is going on in the UK?

Equally shocking is the fact that 16% of parents think it is their job to teach their children how to read. Only 16%! Surely it's a fundamental responsibility of parents to do both these chores? That's what being a parent means.

Cats

Domestic cats including kittens hardly need to be trained to use the litter tray. Some might but the majority won't in my view provided the litter tray is positioned in a good place and the substrate (the litter material) is acceptable to the cat which can be assessed through trial and error.

RELATED: 6 tips on cat inappropriate elimination (infographic).

The reason why kittens and cats automatically use a litter tray if it is in an accessible position (quiet and away from the food and water) is because the substrate is the best material in which to go to the toilet. And therefore instinctively they use it. They go in search of something which is like the earth; the soil outside and the cat litter substrate is exactly that.

If they don't find and use the litter tray easily or are reluctant to use it then they can be trained with common sense by placing them in the litter tray and then praising them with a treat when they go to toilet in it.

The tray should be about one and a half times the length of the cat excluding the tail. It's probably safer to provide a cat with an open tray rather than one that is covered because some cats might be reluctant to go into a covered one as going to the toilet places them in a vulnerable position and they want to escape easily.

That's a minor point. If a cat is peeing and or pooping outside of the litter tray it will always be something to do with the caretaking provided by the human companion or a health problem which may itself be caregiver related.

It might be the environment that is too stressful because a cat is bullying and guarding resources or it might be because the cat has cystitis because they are too stressed. It'll be something like that. They might be spraying urine but that is not peeing. That is marking territory.

I have concluded, as mentioned, that it's probable that cats are better toilet trained than young school kids or cats are better at using their toilet than children are at using theirs!

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

UK police community support officer orders man to clean up his dog's urine

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is another very strange indeed ridiculous story because the behaviour of the police community support officer is extraordinary and ridiculous.

Steve Schuurman, 56, an NHS worker, was walking his dog in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England (information provided for non-UK citizens) last week. His dog cocked her leg to relieve herself which is what we expect dogs to do.

Dog urinating in typical style! This is not the dog in the story. Image: The Telegraph.

In the UK, the modern policies to pick up dog faeces which makes a lot of sense and people do it all the time these days. But there are no rules about trying to scrub off urine from surfaces. That's entirely impractical and ridiculous.

However, a police community support officer became aggressive towards Steve Schuurman, according to him. He claims that the Dorset police community officer told him to "clear [up] your F*****g dog p**s".

He challenged her at which point the officer threatened to have him arrested if he didn't move on.

At that time, Dorset Police and Bournemouth Council had a stall and a van in the town centre as part of a day of action and after several high-profile crimes in the area.

Steve Schuurman said he would have cleaned up his dog's urine but didn't know how to do it.

He reported the incident to the Dorset Police complaints department. They are looking into it! Steve Schuurman said that the woman "got really aggressive" and "was waving her hands around and putting her hands on her hips, saying it was disgusting."

He asked for an apology. Apparently there were two female police community officers as I understand it. On asking for the apology they told him that he would be arrested if he didn't move on.

As I said, it is extraordinary. And an abuse of police powers. For those living abroad, a "police community support officer" is a kind of lesser police officer with shorter training but they wear a uniform and have certain rights/powers but not those of police officers.

Further comment: obviously these officers were asking for the impossible and therefore they were acting stupidly. And of course if we are to be totally fair, nobody ever asks cat owners to clear up the cat's urine when they pee in public places. Not that it's practical or feasible but it's another point worth making about the idiocy of the behaviour of these two police officers.

There is one last point to make and that is this: of course, when an animal urinates in a public place it is not nice. It is possibly unacceptable but it happens all over Great Britain and other countries all the time. It'll be up to the government of any country to create a law which forbids it. But the police officers can't make up the rules as they go along.

Such a law would be very difficult to pass through Parliament in the UK and in any other legislature in any other country. In fact it would be impossible today but one day it may happen. It really might happen one day.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

"Curiosity killed the cat" is an adage which was "Care killed the cat" meaning anxiety

We all know the old saying "Curiosity killed the cat". It's a saying which fits cat behaviour. Domestic cats are, indeed, very curious. It gets him into trouble sometimes which is why they can be harmed because of their curiosity and even, rarely, killed. Therefore, the adage has some veracity.

Domestic cats' lack of understanding of activities and objects in the human world makes them nervous. Photo: Pixabay.

But the original version of this proverb, from its first appearance in the 16th century until the end of the 19th century was, "Care killed the cat".

Care meaning anxious

In this saying, the word "care" means to worry about or to be anxious about something or other. It points to the possibility that cats could become so anxious and worried about something that it could even kill them. And this, apparently, used to be a belief by many people back in the day when the saying was first created.

And interestingly, this concept of worry killing cats is being revisited by veterinarians. Perhaps it's being revisited in terms of the fact that anxiety in domestic cats can harm their health which can lead to on occasions a serious health problems and even death.

But apparently, about 25% of cat owners surveyed in a 2008 study believed that their cat was incapable of feeling anxiety or sadness. Times have changed thanks to the internet I would say which has educated many cat owners. It is believed now that cats can at least experience the basic emotions that humans experience which includes anxiety or sadness.

And if asked today, scientists would agree that the old version of the proverb is to a certain extent true. Anxiety does present as a serious and real affliction for many domestic cats.

Anxiety is defined as a fear of something that is not currently happening. And you will find that there are, today, some anti-anxiety drugs which have been developed for humans which can be used on cats off-licence. Although, we are still unsure as to whether domestic cat feels the same kind of anxiety that humans feel but we are sure that feline anxiety is similar to human anxiety.

Elavil for anxious cats sometimes. Last resort. Image: MikeB

Interestingly, in the study I mention, more than 60% of cat owners thought that domestic cats can be jealous. Almost 20% of the participants thought that cats can feel the emotion of embarrassment and more than 20% believed that cats can feel shame. Around 35% believed that cats can feel guilt and 40% were sure that cats experienced grief. About 60% thought that domestic cats experienced empathy.

Home range issues

The most common cause of anxiety in cats is to worry that their home range i.e. their territory is about to be invaded by other cats in the neighbourhood. This might apply to full-time indoor cats when looking out the window into the back yard.

Or they might feel this anxiety when living in a multi-cat home and where their territory is very compressed. Under these circumstances home ranges overlap a lot and there is a greater possibility for cats to develop anxiety because of intrusions into their home range.

When Dr. Jon Bradshaw conducted a survey of 90 cat owners in suburban Hampshire and rural Devon in 2000, the participants reported that almost 50% of their cats regularly fought with other cats. They confirmed that 40% of the cats were fearful of cats in general.

He states that he has a colleague, a veterinary surgeon, Rachel Casey, specialising in cat behavioural disorders who regularly diagnoses anxiety and fear. She believes that these emotions are main factors driving cats to urinate and defecate indoors outside of the litter box.

Forced to live with cat they don't trust and owner absence

As about half of domestic cats on that survey suffer from anxiety the old adage that I mention above carries some truth. And this leads to inappropriate defecation and urination inside the home. When cats defecate on bedsheets which by the way happened to my ex-wife's cat after my divorce, the cat is desperately trying to mingle their own smells with their owner's smells to establish ownership. 

It can be reassuring for a cat to do this. In my ex-wife's case I don't think this was about ownership of space but more about anxiety about her absence. Although she had introduced a new cat to the home which would have probably compounded the matter.

The stress of being forced to live with a cat or cat that they don't trust can affect a cat's health. The classic illness caused by stress is cystitis which veterinarians call idiopathic cystitis because there is no apparent cause of it.

66% urination problems

Dr. Jon Bradshaw tells me in his book Cat Sense that "As many as two thirds of cats taking to vets for urination problems-blood in the urine, difficult or painful urination, urinating in inappropriate places-have no obvious medical problems, other than inflammation of the bladder and intermittent blockage of the urethra by mucus thereby displaced from the bladder wall. The factors triggering such episodes of cystitis are therefore psychological."

Lack of understanding

When you think about it, there are a lot of things about the human world that domestic cats are going to struggle to understand because they are human. They can become acclimatised to them but constantly fail to understand them.

Certainly, new events and activities can make them anxious because of this failure to understand.

It's a reminder that we are different species and that our relationship as is an interspecies relationship and therefore quite special.

There are numerous activities which occur throughout the day and throughout the year which can cause anxiety and which are exclusively human in nature such as fireworks, delivery vans outside, the doorbell going off, the hoover being used and so on and so forth.

Owners aware

I think based upon this article that many cat owners should really be switched onto the possibility that their cat companion is going to stressed at some stage of their lives and they should look to the causes, the most common of which, as mentioned, is another cat or cats.

In San Francisco it is NOT cats who are defecating in public places but PEOPLE!

Decayed San Francisco. Image: DALLE-E

Ron DeSantis, the presidential candidate, recently threw his hat into the ring on the discussion about the new woke culture. It's said that he made a bizarre speech. He was speaking to the Conservative group's Road to Majority conference and was discussing wokeness. And he made this comment about it:

"When woke overtakes our criminal justice system — like it has in San Francisco, like it has in Los Angeles — the average person becomes less safe in their communities as a result.” He vowed to leave “woke ideology in the dustbin of history.”

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t affect people’s lives. I was just in San Francisco. I saw — in 20 minutes on the ground — people defecating on the sidewalk. I saw people using fentanyl. I saw people smoking crack right there in the open, right there on the street. It was a civilization in decay.”

Yes, he is saying that he saw the gross degeneration of society's values to the point where adult humans were defecating on the sidewalk and getting high on fentanyl and so and so forth. And he put it all down to wokery; the new woke culture.

It's quite nice in a way to see humans being criticised for defecating in public (if it is true) because so often we see criticism of feral and domestic cats who are pooping in a neighbour neighbour's garden for instance or in a public place which neighbours don't like. The feral and outdoor domestic cats get a very bad rap in the news media concerning going to the toilet in the wrong places.

You might be wondering what the word "woke" means. 

Well, as I understand it, it means that the people who have adopted the woke movement are enlightened enough to see the truth in society. To be ENLIGHTENED and to act fairly towards everybody even if their attitudes and standards are different. And this applies a lot to the binary and non-binary discussion about people's gender.

The woke culture would argue that there are a spectrum of genders or sexes whereas the non-woke person might argue that gender is binary, either you are female or male based upon your biology/anatomy.

Afghanistan

When I was in Afghanistan in the 1970s it was common practice for the citizens of Kabul, the capital, to defecate down a side alley. The trousers had a sort of vent in them to allow them to shit without pulling them down! True.

San Francisco

Note: San Francisco is said to have gone downhill massively because of slack and soft administration resulting in a crime wave and people moving out of the city in droves.

Help! 5-year-old black cat sibling marking all over the house. Possible reasons.

 This is the Reddit.com post supporting the title. What to do?

He has 3000 sq ft of house and attic to roam and play. Has a brother from same litter and both are very socialized. They sleep w us every night in our bed. He has a massive outdoor catio jungle in my backyard (50ft x 80 ft) with a 100ft tunnel that runs under Palms and leads to his lizard hunting paradise. 3 litter boxes scattered throughout the house that are always clean w fresh litter. I’ve tried just about everything… still always cleaning up cat piss from walls, carpets, couch. It’s a nightmare 😱 need advice??!!

My answer would be three possibilities on the basis that the cat has been neutered which is the default situation.

The picture is here to illustrate the page only. This is not the cat in question. Image in the public domain.

Clearly, if the cat is not neutered then there is a much higher chance that they will mark territory. But as mentioned on the presumption that the cat is neutered one possible reason is that the brothers no longer get along. 

Siblings become independent

This may well happen because when siblings in the wild grow up they become independent. They leave the natal home range and go in search of their own home range. Their sibling then becomes just another individual occupying their territory. They are independent cats. They are solitary, essentially. The fact that they are siblings no longer helps to ensure that they get along.

So, this particular individual might feel stressed by the presence of his sibling and is marking territory to send a message to his brother that this is his home range and he is unwanted. Marking territory helps to calm him down because he creates his little home which smells like him.

Although siblings can get along it is not a certainty. The idea that adopting two siblings automatically gives you two cats who will keep each company and get along all their lives is a fallacy.

Separation anxiety?

Another possibility is that the owner is not around enough which is creating separation anxiety in one cat. This is happening despite the fact that the person has created a very nice cat environment with lots of things to do and to stimulate them mentally. That is irrelevant in terms of the particular problem clearly otherwise the problem would not exist.

Medical

A third possibility is that the cat who is said to be spraying is not actually spraying urine but is depositing small spots of bloody urine around the home due to cystitis. This is also heavily linked to stress. Dry cat food may exacerbate the problem.

These are three possibilities. When a cat is spraying inside the home it is invariably to do with a mental issue triggered by stress of some sort. That needs to be addressed. The source of stress needs to be found, isolated and then removed.

Cat Urinating and Defecating in the Wrong Place

Dealing with a cat who poops and pees in the wrong place is largely a matter of common sense. There is, however, a difference between the reasons behind defecating and urinating in the wrong place.

If a cat is urinating in the wrong place there are two equally important reasons that this. The first thing to do is to check whether your cat has a health problem. Typically a health problem that results in a cat urinating in the wrong place is an infection of the urinary tract. Cystitis is a typical feline infection that causes him or her to urinate in inappropriate places. Cystitis is a bacterial infection of the bladder. You should, therefore, see your veterinary surgeon first before taking steps to try and stop your cat from your urinating in inappropriate places. You need to make sure that your cat is healthy before moving on to the next phase.

On the basis that your cat is healthy, you should then make sure that her litter tray is always clean. That invariably means cleaning it daily at least. Then you should check that the material used is acceptable to your cat. That will mean changing it to see whether it makes any difference. Then you should check that the tray is in the right place. The tray should not be in a busy location. Choose somewhere quiet and out of the way. Change its position and see what happens.

On the assumption that you have the right material in the tray, the right position of the tray and the tray is clean, if your cat still refuses to use the tray you should ask yourself whether declawing your cat is a factor. We know that declawed cats, because of tenderness in their claws, can have difficulty in using conventional material. This problem probably goes away after a while but it is a point worth checking.

Urinating in the wrong place is not the same thing as spraying which is marking territory. I'm sure you are aware of what that means. Normally male or female domestic cats do not spray vertically against objects in the home. Cats that have not been neutered are more likely to mark territory by spraying horizontally. A cat owner should accept it as normal. If they cannot accept it they should get their cats neutered. Therefore, owners should be aware of the difference between marking territory through spraying and urinating in inappropriate places.

Cats also mark territory by defecating at a certain place. This happens less often than urinating against a vertical object. Incidentally, cats also mark territory by rubbing their bodies against objects including very typically the sides of their face where there are glands that secrete a liquid that is then deposited on the object.

However, a cat may defecate on places such as your bed. This is a form of marking territory and an expression of stress because marking territory is a reassuring process. Accordingly, if your cat is defecating in inappropriate places you should ask yourself whether there are reasons why your cat is stressed. This may be because you are absent a lot. Incidentally, stress is also behind urinating in the wrong place due to cystitis.

There are also health reasons why your cat may defecate in inappropriate places. For example, your cat may be incontinent. You will clearly need to take your cat to your veterinary surgeon for a health check before asking yourself whether things that you do, your behaviour, is causing the problem.

These then are, in basic terms, the underlying reasons why a cat may defecate and urinate in the wrong place. There are many articles on this website which deal with this subject, which is one of the most typical so-called behavioural problems that people complain about in relation to their cat companion.

The key to resolving these problems is to check health first then your behaviour and patterns of behaviour second, particularly in relation to whether it causes your cat to be stressed.

It is important to do one's best to avoid resorting to drugs such as Valium and Prozac, mood enhancers that can help cats, before dealing with simple a more healthy issues first. Using mood enhancing drugs is a last resort for both people and cats.

Cats naturally look to a litter tray to defecate and urinate before using any other area in the home. Therefore, you could argue that if a cat defecates or urinates on household furnishings it is because he or she is being forced to do so. It will be a natural consequence of the circumstances under which he finds himself and therefore we could logically say that it is not inappropriate from the cat's perspective.

Cat Health And Stress

Reducing a cat's stress as a way of improving health has not been adequately recognised and tackled. Stress reduction is an important part of medical treatment. This is something that is well recognized in people.

Stress can affect a cat's immune response and therefore the cat is more likely to develop a disease. Once infected, stress can prolong the disease. One aspect of a cat's daily life that can cause stress is being forced into close proximity with other cats that the cat does not want to be close to. This can happen in multi-cat households where the person introduces new cats rather than the cats being related. The person chooses the cat's companions rather than the cat choosing them (as happens naturally in feral cat colonies).

Short-term stress increases the hormone cortisol, which does not reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. The problem is long term stress resulting in long term release of hormones such as cortisol and cytokines.

One disease is repeatedly mentioned as being exacerbated or caused by stress: idiopathic feline lower urinary tract disease (e.g. cystitis). "Idiopathic" means arising for an apparently unknown reason. The well discussed "inappropriate elimination" (not using the litter box but going somewhere inappropriate to the human) can be caused by stress.

Stress can also exacerbate disease through a loss of appetite and poor diet.

In places where cats are thrust together such as multi-cat households, catteries, shelters etc. paying attention to "social stress" can have a positive effect on the welfare of the cats. The domestic cat has learned to be a social animal. Many domestic cats are thoroughly in tune with idea of living in groups and socialising. However cats are individuals and some cats will not wish to socialise. These cats might become stressed if forced to socialise for the long term with little means to escape.

When there is an outbreak of a disease in a multi-cat establishment, one long term strategy should be to look at the reduction of stressors through reorganising the social groups and by making environmental changes.

Associated: Stressed Rescued Cats

Signs of Cat UTI (urinary tract infection)

The signs of urinary tract infection or disease are as follows:

1. The normal voiding of urine is disturbed.
2. Excessive urination. This is called "polyuria". Increased urination leads to increased drinking. You will notice both. Make sure fresh water is always available as it goes down faster. A complication is that the signs of diabetes mellitus and hyperthyroidism are similar.
3. No urination. This is called "anuria". Caused by blockage or kidney failure. Toxins obviously build up in the body.
4. Pain accompanies urination. This is called "dysuria". You will notice straining when urinating and no urine sometimes or bloody urine. Possible distended bladder results. Cats might urinate in bath, passing spot of bloody urine.
5. Bloody urine. Called "hematuria". Bloody urine without pain indicates kidney failure.
6. Incontinence (urinating without control). There are a number of causes for this. A vet must diagnose.

Cat Inappropriate Elimination - Whose Problem?

We cause cat inappropriate elimination. Therefore, it is our problem. It is not a "cat behavior problem" but a human-to-cat relationship problem. In the wild,  the small wildcat will defecate and urinate in certain areas on the ground, on the earth. Sometimes these areas are used as markers to tell other cats of their presence - the feces remain uncovered. Cat spraying is not inappropriate elimination as the purpose of cat spraying is to give signals to other animals of the presence of the cat. The purpose is not to eliminate the urine.

The domestic cat is required by us to defecate and urinate on cat litter in a tray inside a house or some other human structure. From the cat's perspective the litter will usually be a nice place to go to the toilet because litter replicates earth. In the old days, before litter was invented, sand was used. This is why cats don't usually need training to use cat litter.

However, from the cat's perspective litter might not be a nice place to go to the toilet. The cat might prefer somewhere else. If the cat is a full-time indoor cat the only other place is somewhere that is inappropriate for us not the cat. We have the problem. From our perspective this is our problem. From the cat's perspective this is not a problem except that he or she can't find a decent alternative to litter inside a house.

If the cat is an indoor/outdoor cat he or she would almost certainly go outside and use the earth outside as an alternative to cat litter. Earth is actually better than litter as it is softer and exactly the kind of substance a cat would use in the wild.

So when a cat does not wish to use the litter box the problem is ours as we created it in the first place. The cat is simply acting naturally and reacting to the circumstances that exist before him or her.

This argument applies even if the cat is not using the litter due to anxiety, for example. The reason is unimportant. One well known reason for a cat's avoidance of litter is because it is uncomfortable to a declawed cat. This is a double human problem, one compounding the other.

The reason why I am writing this is because I sense that throughout all the many thousands of articles on inappropriate elimination on the internet and in books, the problem is perceived as belonging with the cat. The cat is seen to be at fault. He or she needs to be punished etc. for this "bad behavior".

Wrong, obviously.  Sometimes, there is a terribly arrogant approach to cat caretaking and so called "experts" are often the most guilty. The cat behaviorists - a trendy new occupation - are in fact "human behaviorists" as all their work concerns changing the behavior and habits of people!

Think on...

Related articles:

Avoiding cat behavior problems

Stopping inappropriate elimination



From Cat Inappropriate Elimination - Whose Problem? to Home Page

Why people abandon cats

I find this extremely sad - photo by Animals Abused & Abandoned

One big reason why people abandon cats is because their cat is not going to the toilet in the cat litter. Yet cats will almost automatically use a cat litter if it is in decent condition. This is because it will be the best thing in the home in which to go to the toilet and cats look for appropriate spots to urinate.

So, if our cat is not using the litter provided, either she is ill (e.g. cystitis which makes you want to go very urgently - this is a human disease as well - this is a Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease) or the litter is unattractive and unsuitable.

If the litter is clean (cleaned at least once a day), large enough (make it large) and well sited (quiet and perhaps covered) all should be well. It also depends on the home. If the home is not clean and our cat has already gone to the toilet outside the litter this encourages our cat to think that the litter is the home or the home is a suitable area.

I prefer wood chip litter. It is not clumping but has excellent odor absorption and it is easy to scoop out as it is relatively dry after use. Clumping litter can be wet after use and it stains the litter tray. Wood chip litter leaves the tray much cleaner so there is less cleaning of the tray to do. A clean tray will encourage use of the litter.

I have never had a problem with my cat using the litter tray except once as mentioned when she had cystitis. This was brought on by eating too much dry food and stress. She urinated in the shower and bath (she is so sweet) and sometimes in the corner of the room during this short phase of illness.

A change of diet and my lifestyle rectified the problem and she has been fine since. So the reason why people abandon cats is the behavior of the people not the cat - sorry for that. The people who are considering abandoning a cat should look at what they are doing very objectively and try to rectify. It may not be the people but cats are reactive so if a cat is exceptionally nervous causing urinating outside the litter we should, I think, adapt our lifestyle to accommodate that to make the home as calm as possible. Persians can be nervous and have litter problems for example.

Some more:

• History of cat litter
• Odor Control Cat Litter
• Eliminate Cat Urine Odor
• Healthy Green Cat Litter
• Clicker training a cat

Why people abandon cats - photo of abandoned cat: published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License

Cat Peeing Behavior

Cats demonstrate different cat peeing behavior. Some cats, particularly Bengal cats may pee in the water bowl or some other place where there is water.

Bengal cats are essentially a wild cat/domestic cat hybrid (although breeding is now Bengal to Bengal). The wild ancestor is the Asian Leopard Cat. This wild cat likes to live near water and can fish like other wild cats. Water provides a greater chance of finding wildlife, small animals, to hunt and feed on.

It seems possible that the Asian Leopard Cat also, on occasions, pees in the water. I have not read this anywhere, but it seems possible and indeed likely as it would be a natural way of covering the odor, which is something that cats do when they are being subservient. Of course wild cats need not necessarily be subservient. Some feral cats don't cover their urine as they want it to be a marker of their superiority. If they do pee in the water it could also be simply a matter of convenience or that the running water creates the urge :)

The Bengal's wild ancestor's habits can be seen in this cat peeing behavior when she pees in the water bowl or sink. Although it is not only Bengal cats that pee in their water bowl. In fact some Bengals train themselves to pee in a human toilet. This is testament to their intelligence and their love of water.

Of course their is no real behavioral problem here as it beats urinating on the floor :) This may be abnormal behavior to us but is normal to a domestic cat in the circumstances under which she finds herself.

Some ideas to alter or re-direct this behavior is to use water bottles for Bengal cats. Apparently Bengals like to drink from water bottles. They also drink from taps but be careful as it has been known for a Bengal to drown drinking from a tap as his lungs filled up with water.

Another answer, if you want to modify this cat peeing behavior is to raise the water bowl from the ground whereby it becomes inconvenient to pee in it but OK to drink out of it.



Photos - top picture copyright and by JeSuisMars
middle picture copyright and By Simon Davison
bottom picture copyright and by bhermans

From Cat Peeing Behavior to Cat Facts