Bella’s owner contacted us here at Forrest Animal Behaviour as Bella had started to show some inappropriate urination around the house. After veterinary visits to assess for kidney and urination problems, their vets referred Bella to us for behavioural assessment with us to help get to the bottom of the behaviour.

During the assessment, we found that Bella was showing some frustration behaviours around the neighbour’s cats, who would stare through the utility door. This would mean Bella would become frustrated and upset, and then used the urination as her way of coping with the frustration. This unfortunately meant the clean washing in the utility become the unfortunate target to the urine marking.

For the treatment we introduced some environmental management for Bella, by increasing the litter trays, including one in the utility. We also made the litter trays larger and more appealing with sand-based litter and lastly, we used fog screen film for the back door. This meant that the litter trays were more appealing for Bella and she could no longer see the neighbour’s cat.

After a few weeks, Bella was more settled in her house and had no more urine accidents. Then after a few months, the neighbour’s cats stopped visiting as they could also could no longer see Bella. We have kept the environmental changes for Bella as she is comfortable and her owners were brilliant in allowing Bella to have the extra space and adaptions in the house.