A lot of cat owners punish their cat with the a spray bottle, blowing on their nose or tapping their nose. grabbing them by their scruff or yell no. But does it really help?
Unable To Link
Cats are unable to link their behavior with the punishment. This is not because they don’t want to, but because they simply can’t do it. So why would you punish? On the other side it doesn’t take the reason away from their bad behavior, big chance the behavior will continue. Finding the issue and working on fixing that issue is the best way to do it.
Illness & Pain
Bad behavior can have many reason. Most of the time the reason of bad behavior is that the cat is in pain or is ill. Most owners don’t recognize it. Your cat is still eating, their coat looks good and the cat is still active and playing. Like nothing is going on. Cats are masters in hiding things. Your cat is not just being a pain in the butt, there is a reason why he’s doing that. Sometimes it’s just the lack of knowledge cat owners have.
That is when a sick cat in pain gets punished and not get medical help, sadly this happens too often. This doesn’t happen because people don’t care about their cat. They just don’t know. Cats don’t pee outside their litter box because they hate you. And often they get locked up in a bathroom, or some people will drag the cats nose through their own pee. Chance is big they have a medical issue going on, and they are in need of help from your vet.
Natural Needs
Beside pain and illnesses a lot of bad behavior is because of natural needs they are born with, without the cat owner realizing this. What a cat makes a cat is mostly searching for prays and hunting, climbing, scratching and looking for high places together with eating a bit of food through out the day multiple times and have the same routine.
Because it’s difficult to teach your cat to get rid of those natural needs, it’s much better to give your cat the chance to develop those needs by adding scratching posts, create high places for your cat to nap on and to play with your cat several times a day. You can even make your cat work for their food.
If you’re not up to this, your will sooner or later show ‘bad’ behavior.
Fear & Stress
There are more various reasons your cat is showing bad behavior. Examples are: stress and fear. This can be caused by strange cats around the house which might result in spraying and peeing in the house, outside the litterbox. Fear can also result in peeing outside the box. Like this there are several other reasons. There’s no need to punish your cat, it’s a much better idea to get to the source of the bad behavior.
Wrong Effect
Not only has punishing your cat no use, big change the trouble is going to get worse. Because cats aren’t able to link their behavior with the punishment they will only continue to repeat what they are doing. Most of the time they will only break the ‘rules’ if their owner isn’t at home or isn’t watching. Sometimes the behavior of the cat becomes worse and happens more often.
On the other side your cat might break the ‘rules’ in front of the eyes of their owner. Simply because they see it as attention.
Cat: Oh, so if I scratch the couch, I will get attention!
Exploding
Frustrated, that’s how a cat owner will probably feel when the cat keeps repeating such behavior. You keep punishing your cat, and your cat will keep doing it over and over again. That’s’ when the stress and anger-lever gets higher and higher, and less loving. Cats will feel the tension, and will react to it which will result in more bad behavior.
Popular Punishments
It’s important to get to the source of the bad behavior. I know from experience with Suki in the past. Why she was scratching the wallpaper off. We had tried so many things, spray bottle, sticky type, etc, etc. She merely wanted to play and more attention, she didn’t have any medical issues. The same when she peed on the bed a few times — no medical issues. We got it checked. Reason? Separation anxiety.
Popular punishments are:
Spray bottle.- Ignoring.
Sometimes the cat is put in a separate room and locked. This is not ignoring, it’s reacting. - Tapping on the nose, blowing on te nose because the mother cat does it to her kittens as well.
Nonsense, mother cats don’t do this. - Yelling No.
I admit, I do this, but they never listen to me anyway.
your cat might end of scared, or will see it as attention. - Hitting.
No need to explain this, right? - Throwing stuff to your cats.
- spraying Deodorant on your cat.
I don’t even know why they would do this, but it’s even adviced to do by professionals.
Tips
- Don’t see bad behavior as a way to get revenge on you. But as a cry for help.
- Don’t response on his behavior. But go looking for the reason, this can with professional help.
- Go see your vet to find out if the bad behavior has a medical reason.
- Make sure you read more about cat behavior.
- Don’t follow advice that isn’t 100% cat friendly.
- Don’t try Prozac or Clomiclam.
- Take your cat away from the place he isn’t allowed to be.
- Place him gently on a place like his pillow he sleeps on.
- Don’t make eye contact when you take him away from a place he isn’t allowed to be in.
- Distract him with a toy or a game.
- Reward good behavior with attention.
- Don’t use your hands or feet to play with.
- Locking up your cat won’t help.
- Make sure he is able to be a cat. Make sure he can hunt, climb, scratch and play.
I will get deeper into this another time!
What do you do with your cat does something he’s not allowed to do? Does it work?
Resources
Majesteit magazine for cat lovers.
Kattendomein.nl
Pictures by gadling.com, spsmallanimalhospital.com, clareandthecity.com.
Lokii is very very good at listening when I tell him no! The hard part is catching him in the act of chewing something he isn’t supposed to. He STARES at me and seems to be thinking it over, and very rarely does the bad thing again!
Spot is impossible. He does bad things for attention when I’m more than happy to give him attention any time! I don’t get it.
Oh, Suki does it over and over again when she isn’t allowed to anything. Hiro? He will just ignore you. Haha.
Thanks a lot for this “reminder”. Good for me
Alfies smart, he knows he cannot counter surf when us Humans are about, so he waits till we go to bed..lol I would never spray him… xxxooxx
Mollie and Alfie
Cats are smarter than you think sometimes.
hahahaha is like Doggy and our “off furniture” policy, he never gets on the sofa or bed when we are around, once we are gone he throws a party.
I would never hit him.
Flattery (praise) results much better
I have “trained” our cats to understand that as well as our saying NO. The cats are no fools 
Like a 2-3 year old kid really./Macilane
You’re right Macilane!
We have used water aversion. Our cats are allowed outside but we do not want them to roam. When we first let them out in the yard, we watched them very carefully and when they tried to leave the yard, their name is called, if they keep going they would get wet. When they come back in (running from the “rain”) they are given treats and told they are good cats. They quickly learn that inside the yard is dry and outside the yard is wet. And when their name is called and they come, they get a treat. After about a week, they don’t go out of the yard and come when called.
Our neighbors are happy and love that our cats leave their garden alone.
Other than that, I have to agree. However, I have found that a loud noise (including yelling) when they are in the midst of bad behaviour, startles them and stops the bad behaviour.
Ciao
Nellie’s Mom
I noticed that dropping somehting on the floor (without the cats see that you do it) that startles them, works as well.
Hey Hiro, Hey Suki, Jet here.
Boy, did we learn a lot! Thanks for the info.
Catching them in the act, I will elevate the voice and call their name, that will work. A punishment after the act will not work, they don’t associate the punishment with what they did before.
As for peeing outside the litter box, a cat is never responsible and must not be punished for that. It’s either a medical problem or a litter box which they don’t like (not cleaned, not located correctly, there is a cover on it, …). Cat’s want to use a litter box, their instinct tells them to, there is always a reason if they don’t, which is yours to find.
You cannot enforce several rules over your cats. They are cats. My cats are not allowed on the counter or near any human food, beside that anything they are not allowed to use is simply hidden out of their reach. My cats aren’t apartment proof, but my apartment is cat proof.
We used to use a spray bottle with our kitties, but I’m realizing now we haven’t done that in a looong time. I don’t even know where those bottles are now – but I’d bet the kids took them as toys at some point…
I love the line “Don’t follow advice that isn’t 100% cat friendly.”
Well, it’s true! If a cat behaviorist would tell me to use deodorant on my cat… I would probably laugh in her face.
LOL If someone pretending to be a cat behaviorist suggested just that, I would not only laugh, I would ask to see those diplomas, as they can’t possibly be real. Come on, deodorant on cats… they won’t recognize each other anymore. Your comment definitely made my day
OMC!!! I missed this post!! It is totally spot on! Right! The only thing I would say a tad differently is that when I was living at the shelter, Kitty Corner, the cats are free to roam, no cages. So volunteers like Mom and Dad do have a spray water bottle handy in case one cat tries to be aggressive toward another. The water does cause them cease chasing and attacking…for that moment…it is always about “territory”, “fear” Very pawsome post, Paw pats, Savannah
If it works, it works.
Charlie my kitten gets in my way when I am busy in the kitchen I don’t allow cats in the kitchen as they could get hurt or scalded, I just have to shut the door when I am cooking and make sure he hasn’t followed me in, I adopted him from a shelter and his leg is in a cast the cast annoys him and he keeps chewing at it, poor old Charlie, it comes off next week much to his relief I’ll bet.
Aw, poor Charlie.
I hope it all goes well next week!