Many of the Pootie People here know that my husband and I have eleven rescue pooties and have been feeding a feral guy for five years, ever since we moved to Southeastern, NC. He has not agreed to allow us to touch him but spends his time in our yard and awaits his meals twice daily. We have agreed with him that this is all okay and thus have a bargain struck that meets his and our needs.
The issue is with two of our pooties who we rescued and are now only indoor kids with all the amenities. These two are Atticus and Paddy, two beautiful boys who have recently developed an "issue" with each other and are acting on that.
Acting on that means peeing in the house... spraying and marking territory and generally creating havoc.
So, we've consulted our vet, a cats only vet who also teaches at Tufts Vet School in Mass., there is no physical reason for their behavior, we're told we have too many cats. Okay, we can accept that but are not about to toss any of them overboard and so are trying to deal with the issues at hand.
We've alternated their time in the house for playing and eating. We've purchased "cat" heating pads that warm to 102 degrees when pressure is on them and placed one in a carrier on our back porch for whoever is out on the porch at any given time. Our outside guy has the other one. We've purchased the "pheremone" thingies and put them in the sockets throughout our home. We've sprayed the same stuff around. Each of the kids has their own "little house" which consist of a large dog crate with a bed and their food in it for the night time.
We've alternated their time in the house with the others. We have mice and catnip, we play with and love on them. We thought we had a breakthrough today with Atticus who actually went all day until he sprayed our sofa just awhile ago.
Sigh...
Anybody got any thoughts/ideas? We love these kids and want them to be happy. No, we will not give a one of them away, they're our kids and we won't do that to any one of them. And, each was rescued at six weeks of age so it isn't like they already had habits formed.
If we really do have too many cats, is there anything we can do? If not we'll keep rotating play times and lovies.
We would love any thoughts and ideas you all might offer.
Pooh, Toonces, Sadie, Peanut, Racer, Annie, Gracie Rose, Atticus, Paddy, Lily and Belle say TIA! BTW, no, you didn't count wrong, Pooh is 18 and has his own "condo" with all the amenities and is happily out of the mix on this one.
Our pooties say "halp'!