Helping Cats with Fear Aggressive Behavior
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Abbie? Using Target Training to Resolve Fear Aggression in an Unsocialized Cat
Before I even brought her home from Frederick County Animal Control in Frederick, Maryland, to foster for PetConnect Rescue, I knew that socializing Abbie was going to be a challenge. The 7-year-old calico domestic shorthair had spent the past two weeks hunkered down in a hide box in her cage, the shelter staff unable to handle her. In fact, the shelter veterinarian, after giving Abbie more than a week to settle in, had finally decided that she would have to sedate Abbie to examine, vaccinate, and FELV/FIV test her. Thankfully, the exam revealed Abbie was spayed, and more importantly, healthy, because no one wanted to have to try to medicate this cat. When I came to pick her up from the shelter, the kennel tech handed me the cat carrier with Abbie inside and said, “Good luck with this one” in a tone that implied “Better you than me!”
Enrichment: Destroy Toys
Is your kitty launching stealth attacks from under a chair as you walk by, knocking items off shelves and counters, or digging in your plants? These could be signs that your cat is bored. Give your restless feline something fun to do by providing her with a destroy toy. These cheap and easy-to-make toys give your cat the opportunity to engage in natural behaviors like digging; shredding, scratching, and ripping materials; foraging for food; and exploring new items in her environment.
- Take a cardboard box, ideally one big enough for your cat to fit his entire body in.
- Place layers of packing paper in the box, alternating full sheet layers with shredded sheet layers.
- Hide cat treats and toys (such as little furry mice, balls, etc.) between the layers.
In about 5 minutes, you’ll have a toy that your cat can happily destroy. He can dig for treats and toys, rip up the packing paper, root around for treats, and joyfully jump in and out of the box.
Be sure to supervise play with string or feather toys, and put these toys away when you’re not around to ensure kitty doesn’t ingest any materials.
DYI Cat Toy Video
Getting Kitty to Use a Scratching Post
Scratching is a normal, natural behavior for cats. They mark territory by scratching, both visually by leaving claw marks and with scent glands in their paw pads. Cats also maintain their claws by scratching off outgrown claw sheaths. Cats sometimes scratch as a displacement behavior, for example to discharge excited or anxious energy. And cats just plain enjoy a good scratch session much like we enjoy a good stretch. So when it comes to your cat and scratching, it’s unrealistic to try to stop the behavior. Instead, direct kitty’s scratching to appropriate objects. Here’s how:
- Be ready to engage in some trial and error to find the scratching posts or pads your cat prefers.
- Cats have strong opinions about the material they like to scratch on, whether it’s sisal, carpet, or corrugated cardboard.
- Some cats are vertical scratchers–they like to stand up on their hind legs and scratch with their front paws. Others are horizontal scratchers, preferring to be on all four paws while scratching.
- You’ll want to find the scratcher made of your cat’s preferred material that is also designed to accommodate his favored stance (vertical or horizontal).
- Whether your cat will use only one kind of scratcher or likes a variety, be sure to provide her with at least a couple of scratchers strategically placed around the house. Good spots for scratchers include near favorite nap or hang out sites, near or on items she’s scratched on that you don’t want her to scratch on (e.g. next to a chair or on top of a rug she’s scratched on), and near places where she gets excited. This might include, for example, a window where your cat gets excited by seeing birds or squirrels.
- Never punish your cat for scratching furniture or rugs. Punishments like spraying your cat with water will erode your cat’s trust in you because he will connect your presence with the punishment, not his scratching on the furniture. Instead, put double sided tape like Sticky Paws on places where you don’t want your cat to scratch.
- When it comes to cats and scratching, the motto should be “Scratch this not that.”
Five Things You Can Do to Set Your Cat Up for Litterbox Success
- Provide kitty with sufficient number of boxes. The rule of thumb is to have one more litterbox than number of cats in the home. So, for example, if you’ve got two cats, you should have at least three litterboxes.
- Be sure the litterboxes are large, at least one and a half times kitty’s body length, and are open. We humans may prefer covered litterboxes, but our cats don’t. They trap odors, tend to be cramped, and cats can’t see what’s going on around them while in the box, making them feel vulnerable to unexpected interruptions.
- Put litter boxes in quiet, easy-to-access locations. There’s a reason most of our homes have bathrooms on every floor—no one wants to have to go up a flight of stairs every time they need to use the bathroom. Your cat doesn’t either. And if your kitty is a senior, has arthritis, or a condition like inflammatory bowel disease, having to go far or up and down flights of stairs may be an insurmountable obstacle to using the litter box.
- Use an unscented, clumping cat litter. Cats have a much better sense of smell than humans, making scented cat litters overpowering to them.
- Scoop the boxes at least once a day, and dump them, wash them with dish soap and water, and fill with clean litter at least once a month. We humans don’t like to use un-flushed toilets or dirty bathrooms; cats don’t either.