Hi, I'm new here, found this site and forum while desperately searching for ideas on how to stop my cat, Hooligan, from spraying.
Hooligan is a 3 year old intact (please, don't bash, $$) male kittie, who we've had since he was about one. We found him in a park with his "girlfriend", Tiki, at the time (and pretty much ever since...) we could barely afford to spay Tiki (we spayed Tiki instead of neutering Hoolie because the vet thought she was pregnant, and we didn't have the time/money to raise kittens), so Hoolie got left intact. A year ago, we found another cat, another male (he was already neutered though, yay!), Bailey, who is/was Hoolie's best friend and constant companion. Hoolie (and the others) had been perfectly well-behaved, and never had any problems, no spraying, no fighting, etc... just perfect kitties, until...
6 weeks ago, we brought home our baby girl, Brooklyn. Hoolie absolutely hates her, and hates that I spend any time with her at all. He shuns me (I was his favorite human) if I try to pet him, snuggle him, or anything, he just glares at me and runs away. He howls/yowls constantly, paces, barely sleeps (he'll stay up for 48+ hours at a time before crashing and sleeping almost a whole day), barely eats, and sprays. Constantly. EVERYTHING. The closest he has physically gotten to me since we brought the baby home was when I was applying makeup in the mirror, he climbed onto the counter and sprayed my head!!
I did take him to the vet, who made sure nothing was physically wrong, and said he figured that neutering would not stop him from spraying, but had no ideas as to what to try. In just the living room alone, he sprays every corner of each chair, the window frames, the fireplace, the bookshelves, the couch, each leg of the coffee table, the tv, the dvd player, our stacks of dvds, the cat tree, the boxes of "stuff" we have... just everything, in every room of the house, constantly. In one hour, he sprayed the same place 4 times. We tried once to go through the house with an enzyme cleaner, but absolutely everything is so soaked, it only seemed to make him spray more. The entire house smells horribly, and since the house will be going on the market soon (and to make matters worse, my father, who lives on the opposite side of the country, and hates my pets, owns the house...) its really important that it gets stopped... somehow.
We've tried making special "Hoolie"-time, where we put the baby down and shower him with pets and treats, but he wants none of it, we've tried feliway, it only seemed to make him spray more... I wouldn't know where to start with the tin-foil method, I don't think all the grocery stores within a 100 mile radius would have enough foil to cover everything... he doesn't even have specific spots where he sprays... anywhere will do, hes not picky.
To make matters worse, the other cats apparently can't take the spray and constant howling either, and now they hiss and swat at him whenever he goes near them.
We're at our wits end, and we love Hoolie so much, but he's obviously completely miserable, and so are we... we don't want to let him outside (hawks, neighbors cat-eating dogs, cars, other cats...) and I don't want to re-home him, but we're all miserable here.
Sorry for the massively long sob story, but anyone have any idea? If you think neutering might help, please say so! As horrible as this sounds, I don't want to spend the $ to neuter him, and have it not work out and have to turn him over to a rescue group anyway - I know the rescue groups can't really afford to neuter him either, but really, neutering him would put a massive dent in our budget, to the point of us not really eating anything other than ramen for a month.
I did read through the stickied post a few others concerning spraying..
Again, I'm sorry for the huge novel, I'd really appreciate any ideas anyone might have!!
Hooligan is a 3 year old intact (please, don't bash, $$) male kittie, who we've had since he was about one. We found him in a park with his "girlfriend", Tiki, at the time (and pretty much ever since...) we could barely afford to spay Tiki (we spayed Tiki instead of neutering Hoolie because the vet thought she was pregnant, and we didn't have the time/money to raise kittens), so Hoolie got left intact. A year ago, we found another cat, another male (he was already neutered though, yay!), Bailey, who is/was Hoolie's best friend and constant companion. Hoolie (and the others) had been perfectly well-behaved, and never had any problems, no spraying, no fighting, etc... just perfect kitties, until...
6 weeks ago, we brought home our baby girl, Brooklyn. Hoolie absolutely hates her, and hates that I spend any time with her at all. He shuns me (I was his favorite human) if I try to pet him, snuggle him, or anything, he just glares at me and runs away. He howls/yowls constantly, paces, barely sleeps (he'll stay up for 48+ hours at a time before crashing and sleeping almost a whole day), barely eats, and sprays. Constantly. EVERYTHING. The closest he has physically gotten to me since we brought the baby home was when I was applying makeup in the mirror, he climbed onto the counter and sprayed my head!!
I did take him to the vet, who made sure nothing was physically wrong, and said he figured that neutering would not stop him from spraying, but had no ideas as to what to try. In just the living room alone, he sprays every corner of each chair, the window frames, the fireplace, the bookshelves, the couch, each leg of the coffee table, the tv, the dvd player, our stacks of dvds, the cat tree, the boxes of "stuff" we have... just everything, in every room of the house, constantly. In one hour, he sprayed the same place 4 times. We tried once to go through the house with an enzyme cleaner, but absolutely everything is so soaked, it only seemed to make him spray more. The entire house smells horribly, and since the house will be going on the market soon (and to make matters worse, my father, who lives on the opposite side of the country, and hates my pets, owns the house...) its really important that it gets stopped... somehow.
We've tried making special "Hoolie"-time, where we put the baby down and shower him with pets and treats, but he wants none of it, we've tried feliway, it only seemed to make him spray more... I wouldn't know where to start with the tin-foil method, I don't think all the grocery stores within a 100 mile radius would have enough foil to cover everything... he doesn't even have specific spots where he sprays... anywhere will do, hes not picky.
To make matters worse, the other cats apparently can't take the spray and constant howling either, and now they hiss and swat at him whenever he goes near them.
We're at our wits end, and we love Hoolie so much, but he's obviously completely miserable, and so are we... we don't want to let him outside (hawks, neighbors cat-eating dogs, cars, other cats...) and I don't want to re-home him, but we're all miserable here.
Sorry for the massively long sob story, but anyone have any idea? If you think neutering might help, please say so! As horrible as this sounds, I don't want to spend the $ to neuter him, and have it not work out and have to turn him over to a rescue group anyway - I know the rescue groups can't really afford to neuter him either, but really, neutering him would put a massive dent in our budget, to the point of us not really eating anything other than ramen for a month.
I did read through the stickied post a few others concerning spraying..
Again, I'm sorry for the huge novel, I'd really appreciate any ideas anyone might have!!
