Good evening and welcome to tonight's nurse webinar kindly sponsored by JHP recruitment. I'm delighted you're able to join us on this lovely evening, on er what is promising to be a really interesting insightful presentation by Vicky Hall. Before I talk about our speaker, I'd just like to do a little bit of housekeeping.
I'm sure many of you have joined us previously, but if you're new to the webinar vets, you're very welcome, and I'll just sort of, go through how to get the most out of your webinar tonight. We really encourage you to participate. With the speaker, there's no actual poll questions this evening, but throughout the presentation, I do urge you to put any questions you may have on the bottom of the screen.
So if you just go to the bottom and you'll see it says Q&A, just click on that and you can type in your question. And at the end of the presentation, there'll be time for me to post some of those questions to Vicky. So please do, keep your thinking hat on.
I'm sure if you're thinking that question, I'm sure other people are, so please don't er be er reluctant in coming forward. Please do put some questions because it really does help with the interactive nature of the webinar. I'm also joined this evening by my colleague Lewis.
Lewis is on hand to deal with any of your technical issues. You can get in touch with Lewis either by putting a message in the chat box, which is once again at the bottom of the screen, or alternatively, if you send an email to office at the webinar vet.com, and Lewis will be on hand to answer any questions you may have.
So, on to tonight's speaker. Er we're joined tonight by Vicky Hall. Vicky is a registered veterinary nurse and full member of the Association of Pet behaviour counsellors, specialising in cats.
Vicky writes and tutors cat behaviour courses and lectures all over the world to veterinary audiences. Vicky is also a qualified person centred counsellor and registered member of the British Association of counsellors and Psychotherapists. Vicky is also author of 6 bestselling books for the general public and co-author of a number of veterinary textbooks and papers.
So I'm so glad that she's been able to find time to join us this evening and talk about the topic of top tips and tricks for tackling problem behaviour. Bit of a tongue twister, but I managed to get through it, so over to you, Vicky. Thank you very much.
And hello, everyone. I'm actually thrilled to be here with you. Yes, I am going to talk about top tips and tricks, for tackling problem behaviour in cats.
And I'm going to try and make it as, as practical, as possible with lots of information that you can take back to your clinics tomorrow and hopefully, apply what you've learned today, which could be absolutely fantastic. So. What am I gonna talk about?
First of all, we're gonna talk about what stresses cats, and then look at the common problem behaviours in cats that you're likely to, be exposed to in practise. And then a little bit about what your role is in addressing these problems. Something then about how you can take some, some history in-house.
And then the most important part, it is giving you some information about first aid advice you can give, that will be really helpful to your, cat owning clients, and, hopefully, in many cases will, resolve some of their cats issues. It's a, it's very exciting, the, the kind of things that you can do in, in practise. So.
What stresses cats? Now if cats were able to sort of march round with banners, and wanted something in specific from us. I, I think that they, the things they would ask for, two things, and that's predictability and control.
For a self-reliant, solitary survivalist species, these are the two most important elements of their life. They need to know what's going to go on, in their environment and what's going to happen, and they need to maintain that sense of control. So When you're working with your, feline patients in practise, to keep this uppermost in your mind.
And bear in mind that these are the two most important elements, that they need to make themselves, safe and therefore happy. So when we ask the question, what causes stress, we can say stress for a cat is when that predictability, and when that controllability, are compromised. Another way of looking at this is to say that the demands from the environment.
Exceed the natural, capacity of that particular individual, to deal with it. So it is a very individual response. What stresses some cats doesn't stress others, and some perceive the stressor as a much more intense, and challenging thing.
So, it is an individual thing, but at the core of it is the sense that somehow that predictability and controllability has been compromised. Now, how do you assess that response? Well, you can, sometimes, recognise it by the behaviour that you observe, and you'll have seen this in your patients in practise that are finding a visit to to your clinic, rather, challenging.
They may freeze, they may try and escape from your run away, they may try and hide. They may vocalise or use defensive, aggressive vocalisation, like hissing, for example, so you can sort of monitor and watch that. And you could also observe that some physiological changes, they may get some pylo erection on their spine or tail, their pupils may dilate, their respiration rate, and their heart rate may increase, and some may even draw significantly.
But there are other impacts that stress has, and this is where it's very difficult to separate behaviour from what you do in practise and say, well, if cats behave, it must be a behavioural issue, whereas that really isn't true. Stress has an enormous impact on their physical health, as well as anything. And I'm sure you've all experienced cats with an idiopathic cystitis, for example, or some gastrointestinal disturbance, or, reproductive or immune system skin, or even the impact of a stressed mother, on the way the genetics express themselves and your offspring.
So there's all sorts of, physical implications, of, of stress, potentially. And also, mental health. A very stressed cat may develop a chronic frustration, for example, and just not be able to deal with life, because everything they feel they want to do, they're not able to do it for, for whatever reason.
This causes a, a terrible sort of negative, emotional state. Also problems like wool sucking or or or wool eating, for example, can be as a result of a chronic stress situation. And of course, it also impacts on on what's referred to as their social health.
It may actually lead to social phobias where cats, as a result of of chronic stress in the presence of people become quite phobic about, about being around humans. They may even be relinquished to a rehoming centre, for example, because the cat just hasn't met the needs of the. Owner.
And, and this creates this sort of negative relationship between cat and owner. Most owners have very specific requirements of that relationship, and they expect the cat to behave in a certain way. And when it doesn't, unfortunately for, for owners, it, it just makes them not fit for purpose.
And unfortunately, the relationship breaks down. So yes, there's no question that stress is either a massive component of or trigger for many of the, problem behaviours that we see in cats. And I've, I've put problem behaviours in inverted commas because this isn't an abnormal response in the cat.
This is invariably a very normal behaviour for the species that the owner just doesn't find, acceptable. So a a massive part of what you can do as well in practise is actually an educational role. Where you can explain to owners why cats behave in a particular way.
It seems very strange to them. But when they understand that the responses and the motivation of the species, sometimes that can be sufficient for them to say, OK, I understand. I'm going to try and address the cause of this, but I'm not going to think ill of my cat anymore for actually indulging in this, in this undesirable behaviour.
So that's, another big part of your role as well. Now, when we have behavioural problems, the role of the behaviourist is to do a really extensive behavioural, assessment. And part of that is a, a, a sort of audit of the stress that may be in the environment.
And what the behaviourist is endeavouring to do is, is actually establish what the underlying emotional motivation is for the cat. What is, what is the emotional experience before and during and after. It, it manifests in, in, in the behaviour of concern, for example.
And also, to, to establish what those risk factors are, what those stresses are in the environment for this particular individual, and how to, monitor those. When we talk about risk factors, we also, you know, we're talking about stressors, things that can alter the cat's perception of how, safe and controllable and predictable their environment is. But it's incredibly challenging to do this, because I cannot tell you.
How many potential risk factors there are in a typical home, inside the home, outside the home, the physical environment, the social environment, the husbandry, the day to day goings on. And some of these factors can be very small. And, and they can vary in their significance to the individual.
And also all of those risks, risk factors, as I said before, will, will be an issue for that particular cat. And there's also a a sort of stacking effect. You may, when you look at these risk factors, say, well, none of them in themselves are particularly, distressing normally, but when you put them all together, then they build up.
So this is quite a, an extensive process that a behaviourist will go through to actually establish, this particular cat situation, what potentially could disturb, you know, this individual. When it comes to what problems are common. I'll just give you an example here of my practise from 2014, relatively recent year when I saw 195, referral cases, of, for cat behavioural problems.
And you can see that the majority of the cases that I saw that year and most years before and since have been house soiling. And the second most significant amount is . Cat to cat conflict or or aggression between cats either in the same household or outside the home.
So, if I'm going to sort of give you some top tips and tricks, and we've got a limited period of time, I figure, What we'll do is we'll focus on those two. We'll focus on the house soiling and the cat conflict quite often. I mean, these are the descriptions of, of, of what the cats were referred for initially from, vet practises.
But of course, quite often, if there's conflict, there's house so. There's house, there's conflict, and even those other problems, that are seen to a lesser extent may also be involved, in, in, one of those, two problems as well. So these are, these are the biggies, these are the ones that you're probably going to see, more than the others.
So what's your role in all this? Well, to a certain extent, behaviourists do rely on you very heavily to actually identify these cases. So, just asking specific questions at the time of, a veterinary consultation, because still, members of the public do not think that problem behaviour is the domain of, of the veterinary team.
So it's really important to get the word out that actually, any issues they have with their cat from general husbandry and care, nutrition and behaviour should all channel through you because you're the best people to know exactly what needs to be done. So that's really important. Just get the word out there.
This is what you want your your clients to do. And then of course, as I said before, a lot of problem behaviour has a a physical cause. So of course your vets then identify and treat any medical causes er for problem behaviour.
And many times, because they're so entwined, if you treat the physical problem, actually the behaviour ceases. And then this is where nurses in particular, can, can, can really add value to this. And the two things that you can do, which we're really going to concentrate on, now, is ensuring that that cat's environmental needs are met in the home, which is really important.
And I don't think we should ever assume that they are being met. And secondly, making sure that the cat has the litter tray of its absolute dreams. Because I've been in this business such a long time now, and, the reason why I'm so obsessed with litter trays and litter facilities is because, cats often are as well.
So I, I've made it my business to. To really identify what it is, that most cats want. And of course, your role is, is referral.
We've got to be sensible about this. There will be many occasions where this is outside, the expertise of the vetting team, and a prompt referral, is going to be the right thing for, for some cats indeed. So if a behaviourist was doing a behaviour workup and a stress audit.
There would be quite an extensive client questionnaire, and there would be at least 2 or 3 hours, taken in the client's home, or if the paper works from a clinic. They'll be working with videos and floor plans and photographs. So it really is quite, an extensive process just to get the history, taken in the first instance.
So I think it's really important that you, are kind to yourselves and don't. That you can do something quite so comprehensive, and a typical day in the life of a veterinary nurse in practise. It just isn't, it isn't feasible.
So, I, I wouldn't get too bogged down in taking very complex histories, and just accept that you can take a reasonable history, but there will be limits, because you have, time constraints there, and, you know, expertise and. What have you. So don't, don't be hard on yourself, that you may not be able to take a full, behavioural, assessment.
But you can in house, potentially ask some really important, general behaviour questions and and take a sort of mini history in-house, which I think is very helpful for clients because they feel heard and, that it shows that you care and that you're interested in resolving their problem. And you're looking for signs of the more obvious risk factors or stressors, and you're looking for signs of, conflict and any other physical concerns, that there may be. And you've got to, if you don't have a behaviour questionnaire at the moment, and, you know, practises don't, routinely do this in-house, you may want to have a look at the BSABA, feline behaviour questionnaire, .
It's, it's quite extensive. And what I suggest, you do is have a look at the questionnaire and go through the questions. If you look at a question and think, I am not sure what to make of any answer to that question, I'm not sure what the implications may be, then don't ask the question.
Just stick with those that you think, yes, I understand the implications of the potential answers I might get to that. So, so that's the sort of thing you would include. So I, I would certainly sort of edit that questionnaire for your own purposes quite significantly.
The other one which might be very useful to you is one specifically for house soiling, which you'll find as an appendix on the guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of feline house soiling, which is an American Association of feline practitioners together with the International Society of Feline Medicine. It's, it's one of the free to download guidelines. Really practical, really interesting, and they do have an appendix, as I say, which is a, a, a house soiling questionnaire.
And again, look at those questions. If you think, I'm not sure I understand, the significance of any answers, leave it out. Just keep it to, to, to what you feel, comfortable with.
And the sort of questions you're going to ask is, you know, if it is a house so, when was the behaviour first seen and what is being observed, and that will help you make the distinction between, is this a a urine marking situation, for example, where the cat is using urine as a means of of communication, or is this A urination, an elimination, just happens to be outside the, litter trays. So that's, that might be quite, useful to determine that. It's useful to find out where did it first occur, how did it progress?
What is the frequency, and has it changed, patterns and triggers, that sort of thing. But again, bear in mind that the information you're going to get back is subjective. It bases, it's based.
On the owner's memory. And quite often, although we think our memory is very good, we might find actually that, our, our memory is a bit out on the chronology of events, or even we could be years out sometimes, in our memory. And also, if people have theories about why their cat is doing what they're doing, they quite often develop a sort of bias, which makes them.
Recall things that they feel confirm their theory, and actually forget things that, that, actually dispute the theory, potentially. So be very careful that you see this, for what it is. This is very much the owner's subjective opinion.
But it's still useful, and again, you know, reinforces that, building relationship between, the two of you to show you, you really care about what's happening. And again, you're looking at the physical environment, outside and inside, even if the cat is kept exclusively indoors, it is still, still subjected to things potentially from outside in the sights or smells or whatever. The social environment, who the cat lives with, human wise, the family, the comings and goings of humans, but also other cats and other pets and dogs, etc.
The husbandry, how the, the cat is, is cared for on a day to day basis, the cat's lifestyle, and also. I think it's useful to try and get a sense of what the owner interaction is and the relationship, with the cat. This is often quite difficult to establish because owners sometimes are not aware of, of, how they relate specifically to their cats, but just asking specific things such Who, who initiates most of the contact between you and your cat?
Do you approach your cat? Does your cat approach you? And just that little bits of information there, may indicate a potential for some, risk factors there with regard to the owner being, very enthusiastic in their overtures to the cat, and potentially taking away a bit of that cat's control.
Or over its relationships with, with other people and, and so on. Of course, the house soiling, you have to, be like me and become obsessed with litter trays. And it's not just a question of, saying how many do you have.
it's more complicated than that. First of all, you need to establish whether they've got them or not. And when a lot of owners and allow their cats outside, quite often they don't have a litter tray because they feel, well, you've got the great outdoors.
Why would you want to, go to the toilet indoors? But ask how many, but not just how many, but where are they? What type are they?
What size are they? Ask them to photograph them. Ask about the substrate they use.
You know, rather than sort of, you may not know the make, but if you get them to describe the type of material it's made from, there are so many litres, available now. You may not know all the brands, but they can just describe it. Does it have a smell to it?
What shape is it? And then cleaning, how they clean the trays, and how they clean the soiled areas. And when they talk about cleaning regimes, be aware of the owners who use terms such as I clean the trays regularly, or frequently or when they're dirty, because these are very subjective and not very helpful.
So it's worth of drilling a little bit further down into those and say, well, how, how many times per week and what do you do when you clean up the tray? Don't make an assumption that they're frequent or regularly, is the same as yours. It's great to have some house maps and some photographs.
These give you an idea of the cat's environment. What you're trying to do basically is just spend a few moments in that cat's world. What is it like to be this cat in this environment?
So you do need to really sort of, get as much information as you can and House maps are great. If you're very lucky, the owner has got some old, estate agent details, like the ones you see on the screen now, where they can map out, where the behaviour started or where it is now. And this may give you, some useful information with regard to its proximity to Windows, for example, or and exit points.
So that's really, really helpful. You may have a hand-drawn one, which you can see is just as useful, for the owner just doesn't have to be to scale, just to mark, and in this case, where all the resources are, where the food, and where they sleep and the litter tray, and what have you. And in multiple cat environments, find out where each cat spends most of their time.
If you can hear that little voice in the background, that is JP. My Burmese who decided to come in and join in with the webinar. I'm sure you'll.
I'm sure she's very welcome, isn't she? I'm sure you don't mind. Social group maps, these are very useful, and, and owners quite often enjoy doing this, because the first thing you need to do is explain to owners of multiple cats.
No matter how well they got on as kittens, when cats mature. And become adults, territorial adults, relationships often change, and they become much more, aware of the need to compete and their self-reliance. So, relationships that, that, that were looked great as kittens, suddenly cats may divide and separate.
They may learn to avoid each other or tolerate each other and not tolerate each other. And you get splits in multiple, cat environments. You get cats that group as pairs or, or factions or or work as single entities just to happen to, work the same territory.
So, just asking them to put the names of their cats in a circle, for example, and Just say, can you make a note, observe your cats, or think about how they interact with each other, and make a note of those who show, friendly, sort of bonded behaviour. I mean, the, the word that you may be familiar with is affiliative, but if you just, talk about bonded or friendly behaviour, I don't think, every owner will understand that. Grooming each other, rubbing each other, sleeping, touching each other close together, playing together, little tail up greasing and chirping and spending time with each other's company.
These are all signs of a, a, a bonded relationship. And then you get the, the more, negative signs, the agonistic or the the tension or conflict behaviour, active aggression, . Make sure that you establish when when owners say yes my cats are actively aggressive.
Do again ask a few more questions about that because you may find actually this in play fighting. But most owners are, are, aware of what active, aggression looks like. Maybe aggressive vocalisation, staring at each other, that sort of wide-eyed, unblinking stare, claiming resting places for each other, pushing another cat off the owner's lap, just because they can, blocking thoroughfares and guarding, resources.
Now, when we talk about guarding resources, the owner is very unlikely to see a cat standing. With their paws stretched out right in front of a litter tray. What they're more likely to have noticed is the cat spending a lot of time at the bottom of the stairs, for example, or, in a narrow hallway, just preventing the other cat, from coming through that hallway to go to a vital resource like like food or a litter tray, for example.
So, if you've got 2 or 3 cats and these social group maps can be quite self-explanatory. If you end up, and this is one that I took from a, a client, a latter part of last year, if you get one like that, I, I'd actually probably, think about referring that, straight away, because that's a, a, a, a model for even a behaviourist to, to make sense of. So the house soiling, cat, it's a very logical, way of, actually.
Diagnosing and treating these cases, and this is a a little flow chart that comes from the house owning guidelines. Basically, you take the history, the vet does the physical examination based on the history and the presentation of the particular individual, and they end up with with the possibility of for potential reasons for the house soiling. One is that the cat is, is not well, there is some sort of medical aetiology to it.
The cat may have idiopathic cystitis. And then the rather wordy one, which basically is elimination related to primary environmental or social factors, that basically means that the cat is, is soiling because something's going on in its world, either in the physical or social environment that's, that's disrupting it, or there's marking behaviour, and this is behaviour, using urine or faeces purely, as a, a means of, communication with others or, or, self reassurance. So if we go to that sort of wordy part, and this is everything that isn't medical or FIC or marking.
You're looking for evidence of one or more of the following. Is there conflict, if it's a multi-cat house or some sort of conflict with cats outside? Any environmental, upheaval, any decorating or building work on the basis that the cat's territory, going back to that predictability and sense of control, when it changes, that could be very challenging for some cats.
It could be the social environment, maybe the owner is, has gone away for a period of time, and, and the cat can no longer predict, the, the, the, the social environment. Maybe the owner has a very intrusive interaction style which the cat is find finding very difficult to manage. Again, a substrate.
Have they changed the, the litter material, for example? I mean, they may have changed to a more eco-friendly, lightweight product that may be cheaper, easier to bring back from the supermarket, but it may be one the cat finds aversive, both in its scent and it's, texture on the foot, for example. Maybe the cat didn't have good exposure to to substrates as a, as a kitten.
And so it's very particularly fastidious about what they use and really quite sort of idiosyncratic in their demands. Maybe the owner just doesn't give them indoor trays because their logic is, well, they've got access outdoors. But something's frightening them outside.
Maybe the trays in a, a, a less than desirable location. Maybe it's placed by a full length glass door in the middle of a busy room or a busy thoroughfare. Maybe, I do apologise for that photograph.
Maybe the, the tray cleaning regime isn't very good. Maybe it's very dirty and, and quite unpleasant for the cat to use. Maybe there are liners in there that get caught in the claws or.
Deodorants that, that create these strange smells that, that don't relate to anything the cat understands to be a, a, a toilet, for example, or the cat's had a bad experience in the tray, or the owner may have punished the cat after, one, toilet accident. And that's actually made this pattern of, house soiling, more exaggerated. And so it goes on.
There are so many possibilities. The tray may be the wrong size, there may be another cat in the house, who's guarding access to the tray. They're scared of other cats outside, or where they've been outside before, or maybe in a neighbour's garden, that particular site has been disrupted due to a, a garden sort of redesign, and their favoured site has has disappeared.
So there's all sorts of different things that a degree of detective work, for example, might actually, establish. So this is what you can do, even if you feel you, you've come to the point in the history taking, you're still not absolutely sure what's going on, that is fine. Sometimes it's really not straightforward, sometimes it, it, it's a little bit more straightforward.
But always accept that the cat is a very complex species. They don't feel bad if you don't sort of completely nail it. But these are the two things I'm going to focus on, because these are the things that you can do that will make an enormous difference.
And your, your clients and your cat patients will thank you for it. So, firstly is to provide a healthy cat environment, as I mentioned at the beginning, ensuring that the cat's environmental needs are being met. And also these litter trays of the cat's dreams, these optimal litter facilities in location, substrate, style, size, and, and number.
OK, so these are the, another wonderful guideline from the AAFP and ISFM, feline environmental needs guidelines, available free download. And basically these guidelines are saying there are 5 things you need to have in place, the 5 things you need to concern yourself about to make sure the cat's environmental needs are met. And these are the cats a safe place to go when they feel in danger.
They've got multiple and separate key resources, food, water, some a toilet and scratch, etc. They've got plenty of opportunity for play and to, exercise their, their predatory behaviour. That you provide as an owner, positive, consistent, and there's that word again, predictable humanca social interaction.
That can be a huge source of, of, distress for cats, potentially, even though cat owners are, are very well meaning, sometimes it's a bit too much for some cats. And finally, That to understand that the cat's most important and significant sense is their sense of smell. And that, rather than the way we view an environment, we have to suddenly get in touch with our, our factory sense and understand that, the smell of things is everything, and their sense of smell is far more acute than ours.
And, and we just need to keep remembering that when we create the environment for them. So let's take one at a time. Provide a safe place.
This is number one. This is basically somewhere where cats can go when they feel under threat. The thing doesn't have to be intrinsically threatening.
It just has to be perceived as such. So it could be, a member of the family or a friend coming to visit the house, for example. But this is where you can advise your clients, say, look, let your cat have a place.
It could be a raised place up high on something like a. Cabinet, top of a cabinet. It could be under the bed, it could be in a wardrobe, in a cupboard, in a box.
You know, pretty much wherever the cat chooses to go. So it's important that the home is set up with a number of possibilities, and then the cat chooses. And at that point, that becomes that cat's sanctuary.
And owners should respect that and not disturb the cat while they're there. And they may also use it as sleeping, resting place, for example, when they're relaxed. So these safe places are really important.
And cats shouldn't be bugged while they're there. Some owners they want to say, oh, it's all right, come on out and. And meet auntie, but actually the cat is far better and far more content having controlled their response to that and removed themselves, from it.
So that again, is about that word control. Going back to that floor plan where the owner has put all the resources in their home. We're looking at multiple and separate resources, food, water, places to toilet and scratch, places to play, places to hide, as we've just said, and resting in sleeping areas.
Now some of you may be familiar with this formula, one per cat, plus one extra, located separately, as relating to litter trays, and it's, there's not a huge amount of science behind this, but this is a consensus of the cat behaviourists from. Both sides of the world who who've been doing this job for a long time and found this formula just, it seems to work for cats. So I was kind of extend that a bit further and say if you can get away with one per one resource, per cat of everything, plus one extra, I think that would be pretty fabulous.
You do sometimes need some quite large homes, if you've got multiple cats, but start with that point as the a bartering point, and then, you know, see what you can do. The more you can get in there, the better. Now separate feeding areas is really important because the cats are solitary feeders as a species.
However, even if there's conflict, some cats learn to suppress hostility in order to gain vital resources. And although intrinsically they don't want to feed side by side, they, they do. If you recommend you then separate the feeding bowls at that point, you can send some.
Cats into a, a, a bit of a, a, a spin because, you know, something's changed, even though that seems a bit counterintuitive, we say they want to eat separately and then suddenly they can't, so. The thing to do is give them choice. And then they can control where they eat, so you keep the feeding areas as they are, but add others, and they can then choose to take food from there.
This is not more food, remember, this is just more places to get the same amount of food. And in some houses, it's a bit different, but you want as, as, as big a distance as possible between each of these resources, water from food, from litter trays, from resting places, etc. And with multiple, cats in the home, you want to make sure, that they're located in such a way that all cats have access to at least one of each, without the potential of being blocked by another.
So you need to sort of experiment with those floor plans and move things about a bit and. It's a bit like playing a puzzle game, trying to work out, oh, well, you know, maybe I need to put, something else upstairs, because a cat could block by sitting on the stairs. So, if you have more than one story of a property, if I have at least one set on each floor, that's a good, that's a good starting point.
Providing opportunity for play and predatory behaviour, that's again, really, really important. You can talk to your clients about food foraging, either with, commercially provided, ways of getting drier food in the top right hand corner. You can see my old cat, Mangus having a go at that, or cardboard tubes or sort of homemade feeders.
You can talk to them about games. They can play with their cats with fishing rod toys, or providing them with little sort of, furry, mouse substitutes, and how to encourage cats to play well with each other. You can see those Siamese playing with a cat tunnel.
It's a way of, allowing cats to play socially around things, rather than it, it escalating into play fighting, which can become, more serious if they get too aroused. So it's better to have an object for them to play around than just a wide open space of carpet where things can get a bit heated. There's positive, consistent and predictable human cat social interactions where a bit of education comes in with your clients.
Not all cats to make the same. Sociability is very variable. In cats, it depends on the genetics and early experiences and all sorts of things.
But if you look at cats interacting with each other, they generally prefer something much more low intensity and short duration. And higher frequency than anything we particularly want to, to give us humans. We like lots of high intensity stuff, particularly when we get home from work, lots of squeezing, lots of, Long duration stuff.
So, again, trying to educate owners to allow their cat to initiate social contact, those owners who complained to you that they don't get enough contact with their cats, if they backed off, that was a very good way of appearing or appealing to their cats and actually Getting the cats to initiate more contact. And you can go through some signs of what a cat looks like when they're really receptive to some social stuff. They'll approach, they'll purr.
We don't get too hung up because obviously, there are different occasions when cats will purr, but just, just talk about it in the context of being touched by them, and they may cheer up, rub their faces, head but, you know, but their heads on them, the tail will be up, and they may flop in a very relaxed role in front of them, but do remember to add. That they shouldn't then feel that's an invitation to touch the cat's belly, because I'm sure all of us at some stage in our cat owning past has done just that and and paid the price for it. That is, it is a role.
It's not an invitation. And when we do succumb, there's very few cats that tolerate that. That feels a bit inappropriate, I'm sure, to to many cats.
And finally, respecting that, importance of the cat's sense of smell, avoiding all the sort of strong smelling products that so many of us like the scented candles, etc. And even the, the, the, the smell on our shoes can be quite challenging for some. So maybe taking off the outdoor footwear, and not bringing it into the house and Introducing new furniture with with sensitivity and trying to sort of get it, smelling more familiar, by draping something over it that's familiar or by using a synthetic pheromone, for example.
And plenty of scratching areas, not just for claw, maintenance and exercise, but also for them to deposit, scent as well. And these are things that you can discuss with your clients in a a nurse's consultation and really individualise it for the, for the individual owner and cat environment. And these are the fantastic litter trays.
We will go with the one litter tray per cat plus one in different locations. That's a really, important part of the formula. So for example, for 3 cats house, you would have 4 trays in different places.
At least 1 on each floor, if you've got different levels of the property and away from food and water. As we've discussed before. Ideal shape rectangular, and the ideal size is 1.5 times the length of the cat, and they're measured laterally, when they're standing up or lying down straight from the nose to the base of the tail.
And you're right in thinking that's quite a big litter tray, probably bigger than than conventionally, we've understood, big trays should be. The litter material, rather than go with, with what we feel is, is, something the cats used before and quite light. Let's think about something that appeals to the majority of cats.
It's something that taps into the, ancestral desire to, eliminate in sand. So it's a non-scented, litter. It's fine, it's sand-like, it clumps for ease of, of maintenance, and the depth approximately 3 centimetres.
So sometimes when you're talking about a big tray, it may not look like a, a, a commercial litter tray. It may be a, an adapted storage container, for example, as on the left, or a garden tray as on the right, or, you know, something, sometimes you have to slightly think outside the box, if you excuse the pun, to get, the sort of thing that, that, that's right for that particular cat. This is a commercially available tray.
It's huge. It's 71 centimetres. It suits both cats.
You can either get it with or without a cover. It's called a Trixie Primo XL. So that's one I personally, and JP certainly would recommend that one as well.
. Offer choice, but in my experience, in a multi-ca household, if you can persuade the owner to provide open trays, but if the owner thinks the cat might prefer covered, give a selection, potentially, and let the vote, let the cat vote with, its bottom, so to speak. Scoop waste that is deposited twice a day, clean up the the tray completely once a week, wash the tray with a mild detergent and hot water, and start all over again. You want to encourage your owners to avoid polythene liners, deodorant powders, slotted grills, which are, I, I think they're meant to be part of the how to clean it without touching anything, but it's, it's not good for the cat.
Clean soiled areas effectively and block access if it's not going to be too distressing for the cat to previously soiled areas. Now, this is a really, really important point. If there are existing trays already, you've got to convince your, your customer, your clients, rather, to add a complete set of optimal trays.
So for a period of time, they've got rather a lot of litter trays in the house, but I'll try and encourage them to keep the faith and keep a diary of usage. And then after 2 weeks you should have a pretty good idea because the cat is has voted accordingly which cats, which trays need to be removed and usually it's, it's the old ones. If the cat had previously gone to the toilet outside in somebody else's garden, but don't anymore for whatever reason, it might be worth encouraging them to create an outdoor toilet in their own garden, which I think is just a responsible enabling thing to do.
You need to dig down to about 30 centimetres, put a layer of shingle or hardcore at the bottom for drainage, and then fill that with a 50/50 mix of, really fine sort of sandpit quality sand, mixed with, compost. I'm afraid you can't stop other cats potentially seeing this as an amazing, toilet, but it, it's probably still worth a try. With regard to house soiling, there is a a a a homemade 3 bottle, treatment for soiled carpet, which involves bottle A being a 10% solution of biological washing powder, bottle B being plain water.
And bottle see being surgical surgical spirit, and this was mentioned in Sarah Heath and John Bowen's, great book, behaviour problems in in Small Animals, for the, veterinary practise. It's, it's, it works, but, clients need to be. That you need to make sure that clients don't oversaturate the carpet.
And in my experience, I find that as soon as you start stay, fill 3 bottles of the, oh, my goodness, just make this all go away. So you may be better off, and you may get more compliance, if you recommend, just an enzymatic product. Now, I personally use Uran off because I've had experience, obviously, and I know it is as good as any.
But if you've got one that, that's worked for other clients, in the practise, or you've tried it yourself for whatever reason, then, you may be better off saying, or you could use this and at least give them the choice, but the key with that, cleaning regime is not to oversaturate. The other thing that, I think it's really important to remember is there may be some situations with house soiling and or into cat conflict, where rehoming that cat is actually going to be better for the welfare of that cat and the welfare of any of the cats at home, and potentially the psychological well-being of the owner as well. But If this is undertaken and you may feel this is something you don't.
Particularly want to recommend without referring to a behaviourist. But just know that if a behaviourist gets involved and decides that despite everything and trying to optimise, the, environment at home, that no matter what you do, that particular environment will never fulfil the needs of that particular individual, then actually, they are much better off going to a new home. The only thing I would say is It's not just a question of putting that cat into a rehoming centre and off it goes on its journey.
And if there's enough information to say, I know exactly what this cat needs, then it's really up to the behaviourists to help the owner to actually get that home for that cat. If a cat's going to be rehomed, to go through the process of being rehomed, it has to go to an environment that meets its needs in the new home. Otherwise, you know, you're not doing the cat or the owner or anybody else any favours.
If there are specific causes involved, then, for example, if the aggression is very acute onset, never happened before, could be, a cat coming back from a trip to your clinic. The other cat fails to recognise it smells wrong, it attacks it and, and all hell breaks loose. Separate the cat's advice, separate it completely, for 48 hours.
And then reintroduce. Now, sometimes that will not be sufficient. So it's really important, those cases say to the owner, look, try that, but don't persevere, if they still appear very antagonistic towards each other.
It may be necessary to, call a behaviourist in, sooner rather than later, because these can drag on as, as owners constantly try, to reintroduce, and, and they may need some more, specific advice. Obviously, for a house soiling, for example, if there are medical etiologies, you address the the condition. If the cat has mobility issues, you provide facilities accordingly.
If the cat has any condition that causes polydipsia or polyurea, you may want to recommend a deeper substrate beyond that 3 centimetres, because when you're working with these, Clumping substrates, if you oversaturate it, it can go very, like a pool of soft clay that's really very unpleasant, very difficult to clean. So if the cat's producing copious amounts of urine at any one time, it may be worth recommending to the client that that litter facility has a deeper. Amount of substrate in it and what you're looking for is it's, it's deep enough so every time the cat urinates, when it dries, it goes into a hard ball rather than a, a, a massive sort of soft clay at the bottom.
FIC, idiopathic cystitis, I'm sure you will know that one of the most important parts of treatment is to increase the water intake to reduce the cat's urine specific gravity. Cats have individual preferences for their bowl size and shape. Some cats don't read the information that says they don't like plastic and they prefer plastic.
But the general rule is, stainless steel or ceramic or glass. A nice large circumference, some prefer, some like to drink out of glasses. So it can be quite, idiosyncratic here.
But several water bowls away from food, nice, quiet locations to give them opportunities, opportunities to drink if they want to. And as with food bowls as well, I always recommend they pulled slightly away from the wall so that the cat can face any direction they like, when they're drinking or or eating. Again, running water appeals to some cats more, you can experiment with the flavour of water.
Tap water, mineral, rainwater, boiled water, whatever. But the most effective way of increasing fluid intake for a cat that's been on a dry diet is to change it to a wet diet. And I, I, I'm sure you know that.
Spring water from tinned tuna added to water, some lactose-free cat milk added to water, a little bit of the, the, juices from roasted chicken added, just a little amount just to, improve the, the smell of the water and encouraged drinking. Marking, if you've got, urine marking, obviously neutering, is the most important thing, and coincides with the most dramatic reduction in, in, spraying. So obviously, one would hope that most of your, CA patients are neutered.
Certainly you can use pheromone therapy, nutraceuticals, such as silin may be appropriate in some cases, as may in, very specific cases, psychoactive, medication. But I think these are probably best in combination with behaviour modifications that's actually being put in. Placed by the behaviourist.
But if you do decide to use pheromones, use the fellow diffusers according to the instructions, one, diffuser per 50 square metres. You can use spray on new objects when you introduce them. You can also use spray the spray for urine spray marks.
Make sure there's plenty of air circulating, around it. Don't put it in your open window or an open door, and encourage the owners to leave the device switched on, all the time and replace the refill, as it's required. The new, cataping pheromone, products from Siva, the fairyway Friends, not to be confused with the old products, fairly Friends, which is something completely different.
This is the catappiing pheromone. Which is recommended for, for conflict, but it's important you use it according to the manufacturer's instructions, and you would place these in the areas where the cat spends most of their time resting and relaxing, and not necessarily where most of the conflict occurs. As I said, you're a marking you can use the fella spray, but prep the site with something odourless, which is, with water and lightness of surgical spirit, for example, before you use the Fellua spray.
And it's best to encourage the odour to spray a small amount at that site every day for a period of 30 days. So it's like a persistent, mark, to deter the cat from going back to that particular place. Now, follow up is really important.
You're giving all this advice, and you've got to make sure that your, your client is clear about what you're telling them. So constantly check, you understand that. As I say, keep it in writing, that would be fantastic.
And encourage them to feed back to you and also ask their permission if you can call them to see how they're they're getting on. And I was certainly Call them, definitely within the first week, if you haven't heard from them, but absolutely follow up after 2 weeks, because if the advice hasn't been followed, or it's been followed and it hasn't worked as effectively as as the client had hoped, that's the point at which you refer to the veterinary behaviourist or the. Certified clinical animal behaviourist.
Obviously making sure right from the start that you say this is the plan, if this doesn't work for a couple of weeks, this is what we're going to do. And I would advise all of you to find a really good veterinary behaviourist who specialises in cats, or, a CCAB who specialises in cats, get to know them, get to find out what the referral process is. Invited them to the practise.
And then they become, once you, you build up a relationship with them, they become a sort of a, a really good additional service for your clients. So it's quite useful to find where these people are. There's not a huge amount of them, but they're out there, to build up a relationship with them, and so that you know if it is necessary to use them, you can.
So this is the details of the guidelines for diagnosing and solving, how soiling behaviour in cats. If you haven't seen it already, I strongly recommend you read it. As I say, it's free to download, and this is the other one, the feline environmental needs guidelines.
Again, well worth a read, really, really useful, lots of, practical information. So there we are. Thank you so much for listening, everyone, and I hope that's been helpful.
It may have just consolidated what you already know or you may have found out something new, and I hope you may have some questions. Thank you very much for that Vicky, that was er fantastic and lots and lots of useful tips there. So yes, as Vicky says, please don't be shy.
Please do post any questions you may have in the Q&A box. So while you're having a think about any questions, just to remind you, that at the end of the webinar, you will have. A, survey, pop up, it would, be grateful if you could just take a couple of minutes just to complete the survey, because, it's very useful for ourselves to be able to continue to develop the programme, but also I know that our speakers like to receive feedback as well.
So that'd be fantastic. So, while we're letting them have a little think, Vicky, there was I jotted down a couple of questions and then you answered them, so I was like running out of things, but, I think, you know, for me it was listening to what you're saying about obviously, you know, questioning of the . Of the client owner in terms of sort of not taking what they're saying, the first answer almost and sort of just continuing to try and build up a bigger picture because as you say it's just their viewpoint, isn't it, and just trying to interrogate, so is the sort of .
A best practise way or almost like a, a script that people can follow to help that sort of interrogation, or is it just experience on building those sort of ques questioning techniques? I think it's, I think it's experience, and actually, I have to say, it's almost a CPD event on its own. Because, it doesn't, it it it.
It's something that, that you, there are principles that you follow, and these are the, the, the principles of, of, inquiry and active listening, and, and, listening to every word they're saying, basically, and actually asking for more information about certain words. It's amazing how if one develops the skills of active listening. You hear, you hear so much more, and it makes you question more.
And it's interesting you use the word interrogation. that's what I, that's what it can't be, because as soon as you have that sort of metaphorical searchlight on people, that's when they start telling you what they think you want to hear. So it's got to be just a, a sort of, a, a curiosity really, a healthy sort of happy, friendly curiosity, to get as much information as possible because as soon as it, Becomes a bit sort of intense and a bit sort of, like an interrogation, then the owner will become defensive and potentially start, censoring what they're saying to you based on what they think you want to hear.
So you actually get, a very, a, a, a very different situation. So, I mean, lots of nurses have. Very good relationships with their, clients.
So that's a good place to start from, because building the relationship is, is half the battle. But it is a skill and it's unfortunately, not one that I can, cover in this period of time. No problem.
Thank you for that. And, yeah, I was just, while you were talking, I was thinking about our own cat here, and, we started to have a period where she was, you know. Using the litter tray, maybe to have a wee, but then for, for number 2, she was then going to the side of it.
And so then, and then she'd go to a different area, so we'd put a litter tray in another area, and then she'd still probably, you know, go to the toilet about another, you know, half a foot away from it, sort of thing. And, we found that, yeah, changing the, the cat litter, that we use seemed to be, although we were, you know, you, you say, how often do you clean it. And it's sort of like, well, yeah, you know, wasn't easy, but every day or whatever, but then we start to change that litter and it was something, you know, a bit more granually.
Yeah, because we were using the wooden pellet, the wooden pellets. OK. Which we thought was all right, but actually, you know, you change into that more gravel type, that seems to have had the impact.
So that was something that when I was listeners, oh, OK, that's interesting. So, . Yeah, you kind of did it, didn't you, really?
You sort of, you, you did what I would call the sort of basic stuff. And this is, you know, in a more formal way, I'm saying to the, to the nurses, to do just that, to think about, well, you. You know, common things happen commonly.
So let's just look at the basics first before we start thinking about the weird and wonderful. Oh, yeah, no, you nailed it. Fantastic.
So, oh God. So, Sue just says thank you for the informative talk, clarifying all the data out there, and I suppose that's it, isn't it? There's so many sort of, so much information out there and you know, you mentioned a couple of books as well by Sarah, who's done a number of webinars for us previously and.
For those of you, you know, for our nurse members and also platinum members out there, some of Sarah's, presentations are available as well, in our online library. So afterwards, if, you know, Vicky has, given you some really useful thoughts, but you want to have a look at some of the, behaviourist, ideas, then obviously, please do check out Sarah's webinars because they're available for you to have a look at as well. So I don't think we've got any questions coming through.
I think you must have, I know, I think you must have, either they're all desperate to get off for Love Island. And I'm sure, you know, people like, yeah, Patrick out there, he's a, he's a Love Island fanatic, I'm sure, but no. Oh well, never mind.
I suppose that's a good thing. It was lovely to have them there anyway. Yeah, no, but I, I, I, you know, as I say, it was a very comprehensive presentation, even in that short time period, and it covered a lot of the key elements.
I'm sure they found it very useful. So, so all it leaves me to do is to once again thank JHP recruitment for sponsoring, the nurse stream that, for our webinars. It leaves me to thank Lewis.
Who's been on our emails, just keep an eye on things, make sure everything runs smoothly. I would say that our next, nurse webinar is taking place on Tuesday, the 21st of August at 8 o'clock, and the topic is going to be Sepsis by Katie grey. So I do hope you can join us then.
I will be on my holiday, so I won't be joining you, but one of my colleagues will be and I'm sure they look forward to welcoming you then. And finally but not least, thank you to Vicky for the fantastic presentation this evening. The recording will be available within the next 4 hours for you to refer back to, and I look forward to welcoming you all on a webinar soon.
So, good night. Thanks, Vicky. Thank you.
