Library

Home » Pet Health » Pet Health Library » Library

• 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.

• Moving House

  Cats are very territorial animals and they may have problems accepting a new house as their home. If the old house is nearby cats may return to their old haunts and try to take up residence with the new people living there.

• Multi-Cat Households - The Pros and Cons

  Cats were once considered to be solitary creatures but we now know many cats are in fact sociable to a greater or lesser degree and thus may benefit from interaction with their own and other species. As a result of this knowledge there has been a move to promote ownership of more than one cat and in particular to encourage owners to take on two cats at the same time.