We have a kitten (Gracie) who is 8 months old. She was spayed about 6 weeks ago now but has started to spray or scent mark on one of our really nice sofas which is right next to her litter tray. I say scent mark cos it doesn't smell like wee, it smells like , for the want of a better description like gravy!! I thought once they were spayed this behaviour didn't happen. Any help would be really appreciated thanks. We have used feliway by the way.

Females can, indeed, spray. Did she go into her first heat before she was spayed? Usually, male and female cats who are fixed at an early age before sexual maturity do not spray. That being said -- spraying is an instinct and it is simply next to impossible to stop it. Spraying marks territory! You did not say if you had any other cats or pets. I have a male who was neutered at 12 weeks, however, his previous owner let him roam the outside world and the spraying instinct kicked in. He is now 10 years old and sprays on our daily walks and I have to watch him carefully inside the house as he likes to play here as well.

The cat is spraying urine -- I don't quite know why people think it has a different smell than pee because it is pee! Feliway spray sometimes does help. We are not cat behavioralists here, but I'm going to suggest that you either train her to walk on a harness and leash and take her outside so she can spray bushes or whatever, or you build her an outdoor enclosure where she can spray to her heart's content.

If you do happen to have other pets, then you will have to figure out why she is marking the sofa as a particular territory. Hopefully, you have your house catified with cat trees, lots of toys, multiple cat beds and multiple litter boxes if you need them.

Make sure you have a good enzyme cleaner to get the area completely clean. Nature's Miracle is what I use and it is available online and at pet stores. I really hope you can find a solution that will help this. So many cats are re-homed due to this issue when a cat is just doing what comes naturally.

My ultimate nightmare... I can't get enough reading about spraying issues and possibilities of stopping it.

So far Snickers is 4 1/2 months old, and her newborn stud is three months away from delivery. I yet need to decide to neuter them both or give them a chance for a litter or two. The only determining factor is the spraying concern especially after Snickers' breeder notified me that both her parents spray on daily basis.

Gashead, I read reviews on Amazon that (Ceva Feliway Plug-In Diffuser) managed successfully to stop spraying. But I can't testify for that since I didn't use it. I am willing to offer buying it for you to test it for me. Here's the link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0069Z7B66/_e ... 8FUWK8GXJL

Sherry, as per my breeder and few others I heard from the smell of spraying is very bad, not like urine. And can be smelled rooms away.

_________________
Clare
Hendrix and Jagger, Brown Marble Boys (born 18 August 2013)
Hampshire, UK

I use Feliway and it doesn't stop the spraying. When a cat pees in the litter box and covers it, there is no odor as the litter is controlling it. When they spray, the urine is just there in it's raw form. Seriously ... cats do not have a separate urine source for spraying and peeing! It comes out of the same hole.

Spraying is a natural instinct! If a cat decides to do it, it will spray! Plain and simple. You either deal with it or ... you don't have a cat. IF a cat is spayed or neutered prior to sexual maturity and kept inside at ALL times as an only cat, then they may not return to that instinct. But, if you walk your cat outside or have other cats in the household, the spraying will be there due to territorial issues and the smells from another cat.

This is why SO many cat owners prefer their cats be indoor/outdoor cats. If they can spray to their heart's content outdoors, they generally will not spray in the house. Raiden is confined to two walks a day and sprays a lot -- the shrubs all smell GREAT, however, in the mornings when he wants his walk and he has held his pee all night long simply to spray on his morning walk, he will, at times, find a spot to spray in the house. I keep a black light so I can check daily the areas he normally uses and I haven't found anything lately. That's not to say that I haven't seen him walk up, turn around, lift his tail and I scare him out of there before he has a chance to spray.

You need to try and make these spraying areas as inconvenient as possible. But, they will simply find another spot. It's aggravating, I know, but if you have a cat, you have to deal with it.

To be truthful, I've never heard of Ceva Feliway. I just Googled it. I use the Comfort Zone with Feliway, which may not work -- I never knew about the other product and first brought the Feliway from the pet store and then order the refills from Amazon or Chewy. I also have it in the bedroom and should probably put another one in the living room since Raiden will spray there as well. The hubby found a wet spot in front of the bird seed bag this morning. I just cleaned it up and forgot to shine the black light on it and I couldn't tell from the smell what it was, but certainly there should be no "liquid" over there.

I've been letting the outdoor cat inside the house since it is so hot out and his winter coat is still shedding. He and Raiden get along somewhat but both of them could be spraying ... I don't know. Both are neutered and have been since kittens! But, both of them still spray.

The ingredients for both Feliway sprays are identical.

Raiden walking is not something you want to watch. He stops every five steps to look around to see if he can spot another cat. It takes us a full hour to walk 8 blocks. And sometimes, I'm carrying him to just get us somewhere fast. This morning, it was raining, but it still insisted on going outside on his walk. Walking a cat is not like walking a dog. We have many dogs and owners that run circles around us. I'm sure there are YouTube videos of owners walking their bengals. My phone doesn't have much space and probably wouldn't record much of a video.

Raiden sprays continuously on our walks. Shrubs near the road, fence in the back yard. He has not sprayed in the house for a long while -- that I can tell. I can usually hear the stream hitting something.

Raiden sprays to protect territory. We have a lot of stray cats in our neighborhood. They spray, Raiden comes by and he sprays, then they spray again, and it just goes on and on. Raiden will spray the side of our house, fences, shrubs, trees, garbage cans. And he tries to spray only a little so he has enough to last through our walk. It's the same shrubs over and over again. He was neutered at 12 weeks and should not have started spraying except his previous owner allowed him outside to roam free which got his spraying instinct working again.

My domestic cat is a one-time sprayer. He will find a shrub and let loose like a fireboat and he will spray until he is empty! Plus, he is about 4' away from the bush and the stream is high. It's quite comical.

Domestic cat means the cat has no specific breed! They are also called moggie. They have no pedigree and nobody knows their lineage. A bengal, of course, is a pedigreed breed. The odd thing is that Legs rarely sprays on our walks while Raiden does all the spraying. Raiden is on leash, the other cat just runs free on our walks, but follows us most days.