At What Age Do Cats Spray?

Video Transcript

"Let's talk about at what age do cats spray. And we're talking about spraying, we're talking about urination and spraying behavior is a type of marking behavior in cats, especially males. Typically that doesn't happen until they're reaching close to sexual maturity which may be as early as 5 to 6 months of age, it could be later as far as 10 to 12 months of age for some cats. Spraying behavior is where they will go to the litter box typically or against some type of furniture, raise the tail, backup against it and spray that urine out and generally quiver their tail. And what they're doing is putting their scent on that area as a territorial mechanism so any other cats that come in that area will notice that. Now spraying in an adult cat, in any cat, can sometimes actually be associated with the problem and so always check with your veterinarian clinic and make sure that your cat doesn't have a urinary tract infection or crystals in the urine or some sort of urinary physical problem that they're spraying from. But typically cats will start spraying if they think they need to mark their territory about 5 to 6 months of age. Right around sexual maturity."