Is he learning how to spray?

I got a male kitty and he is about 11 weeks old now. He is SO cute and the sweetest kitty on earth. (Aw, I know that's what everyone says.) I posted about his sucking before and got some wonderful responses. Thank you.

Anyway, I was worried about getting a male because I had a male neighbor cat many, many years ago who came into my house and sprayed his urine (I assume it was urine) on my heater. Can you imagine? The smell was unbearable every time I turned the heat on. I had a female cat at that time, for 18 years, and I think that male cat came in the house for her. I never forgot that smell and could not get it out of the heating system.

Well, my little kitty now is making these quick shaky vibrations of his tail, with it sticking straight up. If you know what I mean. Nothing comes out, thank goodness, but the look of it is too familiar. He was fixed at a very young age, about 6 weeks old I think at the shelter where I got him. And they told me that would probably keep him from spraying. But when I see those motions I get scared. What do you think he's doing? Practicing? Learning how? Or does it have nothing to do with spraying for territory. If anyone can rest my mind . . . . please!

He's 'spraying', whether or not anything comes out - and he doesn't need any practice - it's natural, but he may just be going through the extreme kind of hormone 'crisis' any teenage males do, and should settle down later on, but if there are females living there, or other males coming to the door, etc, he'll certainly be tempted to do it - but it's instinctive, and you can't stop him by yelling or anything like that - he won't get it. You might want to get him checked out at the vet's - if he was done so early, he might need a 'refresher' of some kind (or not, I don't know what they do about it, if anything).

He's probably just doing the tail quivery thing that cats do when they're pleased to see you. It looks like spraying in terms of posture - tail up and rear end quivering - but it's not spraying. It's just excitement. Jaffa has done that for years but he's never sprayed. I think if your kitty wanted to actually spray that's what he'd be doing.

I may have to agree with urbantigers. One of my outdoor cats - Ashley - was quite a sprayer before I had him fixed. Now he does not spray but still goes through the motions everytime he is happy about something (like when he sees me coming with a treat).

If you scroll down this article to the tail pics, there's a pic of a cat tail quivering and an interpretation of it meaning the cat is pleased to see you. That's definitely what my Jaffa does. He does it mostly when I get in from work.

http://www.messybeast.com/cat_talk2.htm

Thank you UT - I'm not awake yet, and didn't think of that!

Thank you! That puts a whole new meaning on it. I wonder how people know exactly what cats are feeling? That always fascinated me.