"Queenie is a dominant cat," the young man in his early thirites said. "For the last 2 months after introduction of a young male cat, she started urine-marking. She pees on clothing and furniture. Since you can do spay on a Sunday unlike the other clinic, I want her spayed today."
A cat's urine can be particularly strong in smells.
The young man had 5 cats in the last 2 years as follows:
1. Norweigian, female, spayed, 1.5 years old.
2. Ragdoll, female, spayed, 1 year old.
3. Ragdoll, male, intact. 1 year old.
4. Domestic short haired local, male, 6 months old.
5. Queenie, female, intact, 2 years old. Had a litter. Only sign of caterwauling (noisy meows) was 3 months ago. Had never been pregnant. She would eat first sharing the dual feed bowl with the Norwegian.
The owner put sufficient quantities so that the other 3 cats can eat after Queenie had her fill. 3 times a day he would fill up the feed bowls.
Water bowl is available at all times. There seemed to be no fighting over the water bowl.
Queenie had her litter box since she pees outside the first litter box. 2 scratching posts were provided.
"I guess all your wardrobe and furniture had been scratched by Queenie," I guessed that Queenie would not want to put her mark on the two scratching post.
"Yes," the owner said.
I wonder whether spaying at this late stage would resolve the urine marking problem.
It was surprising that Queenie did not get pregnant with the male Ragdoll being intact. Maybe he was too young or intimidated by her looks?
TECHNICAL DETAILS OF SPAY
Queenie, weighing 4.5 kg looked matronly. She was quiet when taken out of the cage and given the injectable anaesthetic. In this case, xylazine 20 + ketamine 100 at 0.2 ml + 0.8 ml in one syringe IM. Onset of anaesthesia 5 minutes and duration more than sufficient for the 15-minute spay.
Incise at 1.5 cm from umbilicus. Skin incision 1 cm long. Remove white fat of 1 cm thick from subcutaneous tissue. Midline incision. This incision was sufficient to expose ovaries, ovarian blood vessels of over 1.5 cm so that ligation of double sutures was easily done.
Hook up left uterine horn. Left ovary ligated. Repeat with right uterine horn and ovary. In this cat, there was no need to tilt the cat's chest upright from ventrally as the uterine horns were easily retracted at the uterine body junction, unlike another case I described earlier (young female cat spayed). 2 simple interrupted sutures close muscles. 1 horizontal mattress suture closed the skin.
Ovaries golden yellow and granular of 0.5 cm. Ovarian vein 50X thicker than a cat not on heat. Uterine horns thick 0.5 cm diameter but firm, not fragile like some cats in the middle of heat. However, ovarian veins were 50X thicker and needed careful ligation otherwise the cat would die of bleeding.
It would have been better if the cat was spayed when not on heat. However, with 2 males in the apartment, she was probably on frequent heat without the loud caterwauling except at one time 3 months ago.
In retrospect, this cat could be pregnant as the solid golden yellow ovaries could be the corpus lutea of pregnancy.
ADVICES TO OWNER.
1. Feed Queenie separately and in measured amounts. No more dual feed bowl. She must have had eaten more than her fair share to put on so much weight. Otherwise, after spay, she may become obese. The cats liked salmon from Science Diet and Proplan but not Royal Canin.
2. Remove plaster covering wound in 10 days.
3. No need to return for stitch removal.
4. No antibiotics given or necessary.
It would be good to follow up on this case as to whether spaying at late stage would abolish urine marking in the alpha female cat.
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