Ragdoll Cat Forums

Our neighborhood has a sorta stray cat that everyone is familiar with and I see occasionally. The people two or three houses down let it stay in their garage during the winter and feed it; whatever, none of my business. Well, this cat (his name is Boots, I guess) came onto our deck (2nd story deck off our florida room) and Atrus spotted him. I was asleep just now and heard Atrus meowing oddly. I found him in the florida room staring at Boots through the glass door. The glass door has vertical blinds that I never pull closed but I pulled them closed now and sprayed some Feliway around the bottom of them in case Atrus or Tesla go sniffing around there. Tesla could care less but Atrus seems pretty damn alert right now, he keeps pacing around and staring towards the florida room. I gave him some reassuring cuddles, but he is definitely unhappy. He has never sprayed or urine marked, even when we brought Tesla home. Will he do anything territorial now? I need to get back to bed, but now the glass door is covered and masked with Feliway. Is there anything else I can do to make him feel better?

This can be a trigger, but may not be. You have done what you can - Feliway spray does work in this circumstance, but has to be repeated. The risk goes up if the outdoor cat sprays outside. If that is smelled, it can, but may not, cause him to spray inside. In that case, rinse off the exterior. You may want to keep him away from the area for a day or two.

I would not expect this to cause him to spray. He is probably just interested in the stranger.

I think it was outside cats spraying on our front door that set my Sam off. It can be a hard problem to stop so if you have *any* concerns that Boots does spray (and not all outside cats do) it would be good to discourage him from hanging around your doors.

Better to do too much prevention (if there can be such a thing), in this case, than have a lifetime of cleaning up.

I say get a German Shepherd. He will run off all the outdoor cats. My shepherd does do this. He is great with our cats but any cat outside is in his territory and is not welcome. It is helpful because we have a lot of domestic and feral cats around because we live out in the country.