---start---- behavior 11/9/98 we were talking about cats last week. we're going to finish elimination disorders and move into aggression. announcements: as of today, we have a fulltime behavior nurse - Jenny. next week, we can ask her all the things we have questions about. She's the first specialty behavior nurse in the country. the last week of lecture will be practical and preventative stuff, by the way. remember last time we talked about a cat - defecating on guy's clothes ddx: substrate preference, location preference, marking substrate pref: cat likes the way something feels better than something else. this cat used clothes, but also floor next to the bed. this cat used different substrates location pref: one or two locations - this cat's locations were all associated witha person, independent of location marking: cats mark with urine, feces, scent, scratching nonspraying marking: may be hard to tell from location pref may be ancestral component may be related to certain people may be difficult to tell from medical complicatino since sporadic important to evaluate and treat aggression component clients belled this cat, spied on her - when she sniffed around areas she used, she was startled (clap hands, or something) wife became prime provider of treats, did more playing with cat covered litterbox was placed in bedroom and cat used it for defecation used amytriptyline for a few mos, then weaned off. in low doses this drug targets seratonin and norepi receptors - inhibits reuptake. do not use meds w/o premed labwork, btw - main mode of metabolism for tricyclics is glucuronidation - little drug goes a long way in cats. hubby didn't rush to greet cat when coming home now, wife greeted first hubby started giving cat 10 minutes of massage and grooming daily instead of just excitable, aerobic play (trying to get cat less anxious) hubby spent time pretending to pack and go away for increasing times, while cat was on meds. if hubby is to be gone long time, or cat seems agitated, can give cat some diazepam. what's relationship b/w anxiety and marking? it will get clearer. if you are unsure of something and worried about your role or what you will get out of it - you have to stop thinking about it as normal behavior. think about normal marking behavior - this is mine, this is mine. now, the cat is marking, but it isn't helping. cat is worried about her lack of control over hubby, over where hubby is. she tries to mark, tries to control hubby - but it doesn't work. so it is hard in cats when you have a normal behavior showing up in aberrant circumstances - often driven by anxiety or worry or something. you have to get away from saying "all marking is normal." in clinics, you deal with clients insisting you have to fix the marking behavior - but often it is NORMAL marking behavior. like scratching - what happens when you declaw or do tenectomies on cats who use olfactory stimuli seriously. do elimination behaviors change? they still rub feet on things, but maybe they lose marking ability. Feliway - facial glands pheromone extract - now being used to treat all kinds of things - but if there is a component of what is in the secretions that may serve to decrease anxiety or make a more cohesive effect, maybe the spray has uses. can't mask this though b/c cat knows it isn't its own stuff. so don't forget, with tricyclics, any longterm antianxiety tx, you can't give it PRN - they need 3-4 days to enter steady state, need time to change their receptors, so they need time to work, and newer drugs like SSRIs, paxil, zoloft, prozac, etc; and clomiprimine/anafranil the tricyclic soon to be labeled for animals as Clomicalm, those all take 3-5 weeks b/c they change the shape of your receptors via a mechanism involving changing the translation of ;mRNA transcribed genes, to make receptor fit ligand more closely. diazepam can be used PRN, in low doses. but it scrambles short term memory so do not use with behavior modification techniques. you need premed labs and can't use it in fat cats b/c it is lipophilic, sits in fat. the metabolite has a half life in humans that is huge and is longer in cats due to slow glucuronidation. but can give 1-2 very low doses now and then. "never eat the dry stuff; hold out for the moist" - what cats teach other kittens. Signalment: myths and relevance of age, sex and breed: one person asked about this - was age important in this case? yes, anxiety develops with social maturity. what about sex? yes, not all marking is done by male. what about breed? long haired cats have more elimination disorders, esp substrate preferences. probably that silky, fine, thick fluffy hair keeps odors and sensations in different ways. these cats get substrate aversions and secondary preferences. no one has ever studied this. The Problem: A: major complaint B. reason for seeking help people were worried about cat and about their marriage most recent incident: key to figuring this out. was important to isolate this temporally wrt what was going on w/hubby, and spatially wrt his belongings pattern: critical. we knew this cat was a social eliminator - went to the bathroom with them. we identified frequencies, etc. we knew cat was usually normal but used feces for some other reason. duration was known, variability/predictability was known. actual behaviors: pet and client - we would love these people as clients - they did anything asked of them. they watched the pet, detailed what cat was doing. age of onset - their view, your view - right in midst of social maturity, during move to new house. previously tried things? tried clumping litters, added litter boxes, isolated cat, cleaned with odor eliminators, etc. nothing worked. importance of client/pet interactions - this was the key here. there was a clear bond here. addressing client guilt: the clients felt guilty here, for no good reason. thought they were upsetting cat and cat was trying to get back to them. child abuse/animal abuse conference this weekend - one woman said she used to board her cat and when returning, cat would bite and be mean to get back to you. same thing as with kids in foster homes, setting fires to get back at you. but NO, this isn't true at all!!! you lock cat up, cat is anxious, environment is unstable. it is anxiety, not "getting back at you." when people have problems in a household, animals destabilize. when people stress out, their pets get hotspots. weird stuff like that. it isn't the animal doing stuff for spite, or trying to get back at you. when you destabilize the social environment without explaining it, animal destabilizes, same with kids. - Video Interlude: video of cat in someone's living room. black and white is existing cat, orange tabby is new cat in the house. they are sitting face to face . orange cat is sniffing sniffing where other cat just was. when cats look at each other they hiss, put ears down, swish tails indicating increased reactivity, anticipation. black and white cat is trying to say leave me al one and go away, but orange tabby is walking up to it. black and white cat says look, this is no big deal, just relax. orange cat is stalking him. orange cat is also spraying b/c other cat will not back down. this cat just marked with his face/neck on the wall where the b/w cat was standing. this rubbing releases the pheromones contained in feliway. there is another cat getting in the way that the b/w cat just pushes aside. so this orange cat is rubbing his face all over everything. lots of non-urine marking behavior. this video was part of a feliway study. after a few mos the b/w cat also started to spray. both ended up needing meds. so this was a case where you had a situation involving spraying secondary to a social situation. role of cat social systems in feline aggression: categories of feline aggression: -due to lack of socialization: feral cats. early handling of kittens is critical - must be handled prior to 8 wks of age. -play aggression: common in orphans, bottle fed kitties b/c correction is lacking -intercat aggression: -territorial aggression -fearful aggression -maternal aggression: very rare in cats. cats have rep for being best moms, some cats will kill litters or those who approach litter. depends on how friendly mom is anyway. also remember if dad is outgoing, you will be outgoing. -redirected aggression -predatory aggression: not the same as predatory behavior which is actually "hunting to eat." predatory aggression is stalking human infants, human body parts, etc - to really do damage. can kill a puppy or human infant. these cats do not eat what they kill. -assertion or status related aggression most common dx in behavior clinic have to do with cats, usually assertion or status related aggression - similar to canine dominance aggression. feline aggressions most commonly associated with elimination is what we'll discuss - people bring these cats in b/c they eliminate outside the litterbox. cats live in amorphous world of smells, new dimension you do not appreciate. -intercat -territorial -fearful -redirected -status related intercat aggression: two views of this: the one that like anxiety and marking, this is normal behavior. remember, there is a difference b/w what is normal but undesirable, and that which is abnormal, out of context, etc. most people view intercat aggression as normal behavior. this view holds it as most common b/w tomcats as result of skewed sex hormones at mating. now consider - feline groups are matrilineal, assemblages of related females and their young, and one or two toms are doing most of the matings. there are sneaky copulators in every social group, some of you in class were raised by people who were not your fathers whether you know it or not. [she's going off the deep end!]. cats are induced ovulators, so this may be a mechanism for guaranteeing parentage, but we know females are receptive for a few days and sometimes a female is mated by a series of males all lined up and who all look alike - may be related. who knows who parents are? so there is a role for hormonal facilitation, induced ovulation. and we know male cats when entering social system do something interesting - if you have nursing kittens and a male comes in and takes over he kills the kittens b/c then the female cycles again and he can breed her. this is documented in lions. so young puppy, kitten, infant in househould - worry about bringing in an intact male into the house! this type of aggression is normal mating behavior. less common view: largely due to conflicts in the social hierarchy that become apparent at social maturity - this is abnormal behavior - consider roles of context and response. in this situation, triads are potentially unstable, they will form coalitions. consider importance of covert and passive aggressions in early phases - think about the video you saw. cat who was already there, and already confident and willing to let the new cat come in just sat, stared at the other cat. no actual fighting back. only later did the new orange cat get more overtly aggressive and threatening. first threat was olfactory mark done in secret. importance of overt and active aggressions in later phases as in video orange cat got more assertive over time overt aggressions are more common at first b/w totally unknown cats and also b/w known evenly matched cats with a history covert aggression is initially more common b/w known cats, esp those with unequal status. generally one cat does a threat, other cat responds, they work it out. if new orange cat hadn't felt at least equal or better than other cat, initial interaction would have resulted in new cat realizing he should just go away. but pathologically this new orange cat kept following the other cat around. tx: -identify relative victims and aggressors. in video, orange new cat was aggressor. other guy wasn't really a victim, though. -you can bell the aggressor - why? well, if you have a "victim" living in fear of the aggressor, you can give the victim some advance warning of arrival of aggressor. -banish or isolate aggressor. cats in social systems time and space share. you want to gain control of this. this decreases uncertainty about environment. just put aggressor in a spare bedroom and then the other cat, the victim, has "control" over rest of house, giving him some certainty about being able to move around. -passively structure status with access to space -passively structure status with order of attention: groom aggressor last, groom victim first. -use desensitizatino and counter conditioning with harnesses when supervised -flooded with cages - caution, but can help with profoundly motivated aggressor. put each cat into a cage and leave them facing each other until they will ignore eachother. this is a harsh technique that may work or may make it worse. can work quickly though but you have to be careful. -rehoming? the victim has to get rehomed b/c no one wants the aggressor, though. -antianxiety meds: benzodiazepines for victim to make less anxious and less fearful and make it forget how awful things are; serotonin agonists like buspirone for victim to make it more assertive, tricyclics for victim and aggressor, SSRIs for victim/aggressor. Video of student's cat: here's a hint - we're talking about intercat aggression orange cat on table, black cat on sofa. orange cat sitting on table, looking up at black cat on top of shelves. orange cat clmbs furniture to get up there with black cat. black cat moves away. height in cats gives more status. so orange cat has invaded the space of the black cat. the orange cat is all fluffy right now. orange cat is new cat. black cat is moving to other side of shelf. staring at orange cat. black cat looks over with ears flattenned. that means - ears back and down means he's in control. black and white cat looks away. willing to share space but not leave. orange cat is staring at black cat. cats staring at each other now...black cat moving toward the orange cat...facing orange cat, now looking away...spot on ceiling - black cat puts ears back (threat), orange cat turns away. black and white cat wants to leave, orange cat is hunkeing down, blocking access to exit. black cat charges orange cat, orange cat sits up, stares at black cat. these cats are in fact fighting. orange cat isn't looking directly at black cat, b/c doesn't have the chutzpah. is looking to side. now, black cat is hissing at orange cat. this cat is pissed off now, pupils dilated, ears back, orange cat now staring at it. black cat approaches orange cat, bats at it, and pushes it off shelf. orange cat falls onto husband on sofa. black cat was acting appropriately. the role of swatting may have a role in blunting future interactions. Territorial Aggression ---end----