Coping With Cat Urine In The House

The image of the docile cow getting covered in flies while she chews the grass or the cud very slowly and calmly is one that most people have of the cow.

However, the reality can be a lot different and researchers at Florida State University have been finding that the aggressive streak in cows is more and more common. Why that should be is another matter entirely and one which these researchers aren’t too interested in answering just yet.

“We conducted studies on herds of dairy cows on 50 ranches across Florida over a ten-year period,” says Sismic Culluck of the bovine division of the Animal Behavioral Studies Department at the Tampa college. “It was a very comprehensive and lengthy study and we were quite surprised at the results.”

Taking samples of what he terms “anger hormones” in the cows, Culluck and his team found that during the ten-year period covered, cows of all ages experienced a 38% rise in the prevalence of this aggressive strain in their blood.

One of the more interesting corollaries from this test showed that they were having less medical complications from flies at the same time.

The researchers insist that they cannot be certain that the two sets of findings are even related. The presence of the hormone could be, they say, attributed to a change in feeding patterns or in the ingredients of formula feed. It does correspond with a period during which farmers had become more and more dependent on formulated feed for their animals rather than using more natural foods.

Or it could be that the formula feed has something in it that acts as a fly repellent through the skin and that that is causing the reduction in fly problems for the increasingly cranky animals.

What many farmers believe, however, is that more and more cows are simply evolving with the increase in flies around the farms and are fighting back.

“It’s certainly both an interesting and a plausible theory,” says Dr. Culluck. “Nature has a way of fighting back in a whole host of domains and manners that really leave you wondering if we aren’t all just puppets whose strings are being controlled by something else.”

Cat urine is a truly awful problem if it happens that your cat decides to pee in the wrong place, won’t respect the litter tray arrangements and starts to create a horribly smelling environment, ruining the soft furnishings and carpets of your house.

It seems to be inevitable that all those who own cats face this kind of problem in one form or another at some point of their lives with cats.

The good news is that the causes are usually very common and not too difficult to pinpoint. There are a few things that tend to cause it and the chances are that it will be one or more of these, so once you’ve eliminated them, then you will have no problems going forward… hopefully!

The first thing you need to look at if your cat is peeing in the wrong places is that of sickness. If your cat is unwell, then urination will occur. This is the most common cause of sudden stupid urination from a domestic cat.

Things to watch out for are excessive drinking (the cat, I mean, not you!) and traces of blood in her urine and/or very strong smelling urine. The latter can be an indication of infection, cystitis or simple dehydration.

Of course, the vet is the next place to go to have any of this checked out before you can move on with your analysis.

If you have ruled out the sickness issue and your cat is confirmed to be in good health, then you’re into the area of psychology. In other words, your cat is spraying or urinating (there is actually a significant difference) because of stress or mental anguish.

Cats are emotional and instinctive creatures. There’s only need to see your cat in action as it stalks and kills its prey to see what a complexity of delicate hard-wiring there is in her brain.

Cats are not naughty and shouldn’t be punished for this kind of behavior (despite the strong temptation to teach her a lesson). You should instead look for the cause of the stress. Maybe it’s a new cat in the household, a new dog next door or a new arrival in the house or even a change in the furniture in the house. It’s possible for any of these or combination of them to cause the problem.

Cat spraying is a completely different behavioral problem to cat urination. Getting urine off from cat spraying is a slightly trickier affair too. The spraying is a territorial thing and you’ll probably need to clean a horizontal surface and get urine off the wall rather than off the carpet. If your cat is