# Flicka's spraying diary



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

So the backstory is that the other day I gave Flicka some food that she was okay with the first couple of times, but then made her sick. And now I'm leaving it out of her diet all together. Just to clear that up first.

She's had issues being sick in the past, sometimes directly due to ingredients, sometimes because she's eaten it too fast, sometimes because she's stressed anyway as a stress relief thing.

Usually when she's been sick, she takes ages to calm down. I don't know whether this is directly being upset about it, or whether past people had told her off for it, and a vicious cycle of stress resulted.

Back in June (she came back to me at the end of May, for timing reference), on the occasions she was sick, she'd always spray afterwards. Usually in multiple placed. And then just generally be unmanageable for about a day. This was during the period when I was trying to improve her diet - urgent change because of that cause of being sick, but also difficult as she was very picky. 

Over the summer once on her nice new diet she was being sick much less due to my level of care vs the level of care in the home that broke her. But still on the odd occasions when she was sick, it would be hours till she calmed down. Lots of crying and pacing and separation anxiety flaring up and general upset. Even talking end of August, she'd not want to eat more food for 4hrs or so, because of stress. And even if not immediately, she might still spray in the next 24hrs or so.

At the start of the month, on top of the Feliway, she started on Zylkene. Thanks everyone who helped with my questions there  She started on a high dose, and then dropped down to the right dose for her weight after 2 weeks. I was told that given that the behaviour issues it was being used for were chronic (even if slowly improving) that it might take a while before I saw a difference.

So the other day I fed her this food that made her sick. She was in her safe base room where she spends the night and I was a floor up in my bedroom. I heard her crying and went "uh oh, I wonder if she's been sick" and she had.

BUT BUT BUT BUT

I cleared it up and while I did that she was weaving around me purring. Which is unusual in itself as she usually avoids me and continues with the upset crying noises.

And then we had a cuddle, which is something I've always done post-clean-up to emphasise that I'm not cross. But she was much more relaxed from the start, compared to previous occasions.

She made some 'hungry more food' noises straight after that, and happily consumed a small amount of Applaws.

And do you know what?
She didn't spray. She didn't even spray in the 48hrs following. None. Zilch.
She's been back with me now for 5 months, and this is the first super stressful situation (to her) which she's not sprayed even a little bit following.

I am super impressed with her progress :thumbup:


----------



## KCTT (Jul 19, 2014)

I do think they find being sick stressful when Topsy was being poorly he looked distraught after he had done it as I cleaned it up. I learnt to know when he was going to be sick as he did a funny meow so I could stroke his back as he did it and reassure him as I cleaned up. I am pleased that you are able to reassure Flika and she feels less stressed by it all now. Well done for the progress and hope it continues for you both x


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

Being upset about being sick is fine (I know I hate it when I am!). But it triggering a whole new spraying episode is not so much. It's the lack of spraying that's the amazing progress


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

We've just had 4 days without Feliway. Because I'm not to be trusted with taking note of how quickly time passes. Lots of yowling and pacing and stuff, but no spraying at all. Anywhere. At any point. Also no cystitis flare-up.

I'm now trialling having the Feliway on during the day, but off at night.

I'm sure part of that is that she's more settled in general just through time passing. But that's got to be the Zylkene in part.


----------



## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Sounds as though Flicka is making really good progress Torin - well done Flicka!:thumbsup: 

........and well done you as well, for your patient, consistent encouragement with her. 

p.s. I didn't realise you had also fostered her in the past before she was adopted. So you really do know exactly what she was like before she left you.


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

Oh crap, I missed your reply because I thought I'd posted this thread in behaviour. Since it's sort of an ongoing progress report, what's the best way to contact Lynn and ask for it to be moved? 



chillminx said:


> p.s. I didn't realise you had also fostered her in the past before she was adopted. So you really do know exactly what she was like before she left you.


Hehe yes! I don't think I would have ended up with her otherwise, as I was so very certain I didn't want my own cat. Whoops...



Torin said:


> I'm now trialling having the Feliway on during the day, but off at night.


So I did that for about a week, but then stopped. As it's in Flicka's base room, which is really the spare room, I don't usually have the radiator on much in there. The relatively cold environment has resulted in a much slower rate of Feliway diffusing - maybe half the speed of 'normal'? It's still working, just slowly. Which is sort of half-dose in itself. So I plan to keep it on 24/7 like this until late April (I'm away late March/ early April, so after that disruption), and then try the off at night thing again.

The Zylkene is still going well. I've now left her on her own for 24hrs a couple of times with her automatic feeder, and a double-dose of Zylkene on those nights, and she's been fine too. We're currently on about 3 months spray-free now! In the new year I'm going to start letting her out for more time during the day. I would have started that sooner, but was waiting till after Christmas-related-disruptions.

I'm about to order some more. And will be doing Paddypaws' capsule-splitting trick.


----------



## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

To request having a thread moved you could PM Lynn.


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

Thanks very much to Lynn for all the thread moving and re-naming :thumbup1:

The 'slowly slowly' approach for getting her to use more of the house backfired rather. I'm not entirely sure what specifically triggered it, but she started occasionally standing up to pee again. So back on cystitis supplements.

A more pressing point of concern is that at the end of March I'm away working for 2-3 weeks and my parents are house-sitting. Flicka's met my mum rather a lot for day and few-day visits and is happy with her, but has only met my dad once. Flicka's 'base room' up until now has been what was really my spare room:










However my mum is allergic to cats, so when my mum comes to stay, she has my bed, I sleep in the spare room with Flicka. But that doesn't work with two parents...

So a week ago I started Flicka on a double Zylkene dose, yesterday moved some of her stuff, and today moved all the rest of her stuff and herself into my cellar/ ex rat room. Flicka not being in the spare room is really the only option re. parents. It's also very easily washable, should there be any problems. And long term prospects are much more stable. I considered moving her 'base room' a few times previously, but massive house reorganisation (everything that was in the rat room is dumped in my front room and kitchen!) basically it never felt like a good time.

This is her new room:





















































[the cage is empty but can't be removed from the room, so is acting as an anchor to attach other less stable things to]

I moved her down at 7.30pm tonight, a bit after her tea. She was initially quite upset, but seems to have calmed down now. Still a bit unsure and cried at me when I went in, but seems relatively settled. I've witnessed her using her scratching posts, rubbing on a few things, and eating. Also she did a pee in her OKO tray. It's smaller than normal, but it's still a pee, and not one that looks like it was done while standing up either 









[I knew you lovely people would appreciate the photo haha!]

I'm hoping that 2 months is enough for some sort of settling. I'm planning on 2 weeks in the new room only, before letting her have any time anywhere else. It's not a totally new room to her, as previously when she's had house access she's been free to go in there, and she likes it a lot. But does that sound like a suitable working timescale?

Happy to have any other pointers too. She's not the most adaptable cat ever.


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

Oh, I just realised that the window is completely out of shot (it's on the wall above the checked blanket). It's not a cellar that's completely below ground, just the lowest floor of my house. So no one worry, there is a window for air flow and stuff


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

I decided it was better to go too slowly (whatever that may be), rather than too fast and wait until after I was back from working away to give her further access. So just this morning (90mins ago) I've opened the door from her cat room in the cellar to have kitchen (and main stairs) access.

I did some marker training with her while she went around rubbing her scent glands on things to reinforce that that's the type of scent marking I approve of. Which I've done before, and seems to work pretty well with her.

The downside is that because of my house layout, other than going between my bedroom and bathroom, going between any other rooms requires opening and shutting doors without letting her through. Oh well!

Hopefully this angle will work...


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

Still going well!  I'm still occasionally doing marker training and congratulating her on appropriate marking (rubbing, scratching post) in the kitchen. But I'm no longer worried about her spraying in there. It's excellent. I'm so happy and proud of her!


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

Flicka is still doing fabulously 

She had access to her room (cellar), the kitchen, and the stairs up from the kitchen for 2.5 months. Towards the end of that time, I started giving her occasional access to the utility room. My house has a slightly weird layout, and one aspect of this is that the fridge is just through the door in the utility room rather than in the kitchen proper. I keep the door closed when I don't need the fridge in winter for keeping the heat in the main bits of the house, but in late spring/ summer I'm more flexible. However last summer/ autumn Flicka had sprayed and just generally peed in there a few times. So I was initially cautious.

In May, I planted up a big tray of seeds for the rats and put it on a window sill in the utility room. A month later and Flicka has claimed it for herself as a more varied 'cat grass' option. It means there's something really nice in that room for her to do. Also it's raised, so she's not just padding about on the floor. I think that's helped a lot as it's where she makes a beeline for now, rather than potentially having something else on her mind.

Also at the end of May, I finally caved and bought her a LazyDays bed. She had been sleeping on the kitchen table (the big scratching post is next to it) for a while, so I initially put the bed there. Recently I've moved it to a bit of space on the edge of the counter, which is slightly higher and also opposite the window. She seems really settled sleeping there.

I've also decided that the giant scratching post can stay in the kitchen. I've moved it so that it's next to the table, and although that makes it more in the middle of the room, it's also less in the way. She still uses it a lot. And also mostly scratches at full height now too. So getting more confident.

Last week when I was ill and camping out on the sofa in the living room, she decided she needed to be in there looking after me. The living room in my house is off the kitchen, but the other way from the utility room. I hadn't been planning on giving her access to the living room next. I had in fact been planning on giving her the landing and bathroom on the 1st floor! This is because her main spraying areas had been the porch (off the living room), and also this side of the porch door too. So I was thinking maximum time until she got access to those places back. But she decided otherwise, and as it was a stressful 12 days or so I decided to let her, in case that was even more stressful....

She has been BRILLIANT. Immediately found a favourite place of mark with her head/ neck, and then a 2nd, 3rd and 4th place fairly quickly. I've been reinforcing these new places with my voice, and some of the older places too for re-emphasis. She's spending a lot of time during the day on the sofa and/ or on the floor. On her scratching mat! I bought it last year at the same time as buying the big ZP mouse and two wall-mounted scratchers as well, and she ignored it. So I thought it was a bad buy. But a whole year later it's her new favourite to sit on, and scratch. Heh.

I still have a Feliway plug-in in her base room.Although she was on Zylkene and bladder capsules again last week in case me being ill was super worrying, she's basically been off them since mid-May. I slowly tapered the Zylkene down both in terms of amount and also frequency (every other day, every 3 days etc.). How fabby is that?!?!

ALSO, she is much much much more relaxed around me generally now. She doesn't feel she has to be right on top of me all the time. We can hang out in different parts of the same room. She doesn't always look up when I go out of the room. She'll happily pace around her space on a scentmarking mission without stopping to talk to me en-route. Just as affectionate, but not stressy about it.

How great is that


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

I do have a couple of questions though:

She does her face/ neck rubbing on a few different surface types, but seems to favour wood and cardboard (I currently have a couple of boxes hanging around). Is this because they're more porous than plastic or metal, and thus hold her smell better?

I'm assuming that if I move her two marking-favoured cardboard boxes that this will upset her. One has rat toys in and is blocking an armchair so will ideally move at some point. The other is out of the way, but is just storing a spare bag of her cat litter, so is not problematic other than visually to leave. The latter could stay, but do you reckon with time she might be okay to rub herself on the chair itself? If I slightly moved the box to one side in a bit, would she be more inclined, or would that not make much of a difference? She quite likes higing behind the chair. Related to the above, what if I attached a bit of cardboard to the chair, but in a way that means I can also use the chair?

Sometimes, especially when excited or perhaps anticipating something she will turn her back to a vertical and do the classic 'tail straight up vibrating at the base' thing that goes with spraying. But without spraying. Have I interpreted this properly, or does this behaviour have a more specific meaning? My cat behaviour book doesn't meantion it, and as I don't know the proper name, I've not had any success on google/ searching. @chillminx ?

Do I need a litter tray in the living room? Currently she has 3 trays. A super large one in her room filled with BK (main one used 90% of the time). A small (advertised as large, but small in comparison!) one filled with OKO in there also (basically ignored, but it's not in the way so I've left it for now). And a similar sized covered one with OKO in the kitchen (very occasionally used). As she's now much calmer in general and hasn't really had any bladder issues for a while I was thinking not. But just to double check!

Have I missed anything?


----------



## Torin. (May 18, 2014)

Spraying again


----------

