Catching the Guilty Party

A serious multiple cat challenge is when one of our cats is misbehaving. But which one?

Since cats are all about maintaining their cool, we don’t have any guilty looks to go by. (It doesn’t work with dogs, either. Once we have more than one dog, we find out that the cry of “who did this?” means they all look guilty.)

So when we come into the room and ask “who did this?” we won’t get much in the way of useful behavioral cues. The tipped-over lamp sends everyone running.

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We need different techniques for different problems.

Litter misbehavior. It’s always upsetting to find out someone is protesting something by not using their litter box. Unless we have a DNA lab handy, the substance itself won’t be definitive, but it can actually hold clues. If it is not normal looking, we can assume we have a sick cat, and see if anyone is behaving in a way that is not normal for them.

We can also bring each cat to the litter. A cat who doesn’t have any issues will explore the area and leave. A cat who is avoiding the litter box will act distressed and run away from it.

If it’s cat feces we are finding, and we still have trouble knowing who, serve everyone a spoonful of canned food; with different color crayon shavings added for each cat. This is non-toxic wax that will show up and let us know who.

If all else fails, we can isolate each cat in turn; which can also help solve litter box issues from cat conflicts or poor litter box placement.

Explore my problem solving program.

Something has been messed with. We come home and find something is fascinating someone. But who?

We can try examining the object, and see if the One Who is Fascinated will appear to learn more. If we haven’t yet shown any displeasure, or scared anyone away from us over it, we have a great situation for finding out who shares our interest in this object or place.

Don’t be too quick to conclude that the cat who shows up is the one; they might just know who is the one. But if we have an audience of some sort, we can explain that this thing doesn’t care for that kind of attention, and the cat who is messing with it is mistaken. We can block off or move the object.

If it’s obvious the object is suffering from contact, try applying some strongly scented oil to it. When a cat paws the object, their paw will smell like mint or lavender. Or, the scent will remind them they aren’t supposed to play with it.

If the situation continues, we might need to use Cat Traps. One cat running from the room where the Cat Trap just went off will give us visual confirmation of who set it off.

Misbehavior that comes up suddenly is usually a sign of stress, either physical, or mental. A new object in the home is going to get some natural curiosity, and it’s possible we can broker a deal to have it left alone. Persistent cats are usually expressing a need, and we need to know what that is.

Knowing which cat is feeling the stress is our first step in getting rid of it.

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