Page 926 - Small Animal Clinical Nutrition 5th Edition

958 Small Animal Clinical Nutrition

Box 46-6. Behavioral Screen for Cats with Inappropriate Urination.*
VetBooks.ir All cats that urinate outside the litter box or in inappropriate places should receive a medical evaluation to identify and address underlying

medical disease(s). In some cases, a primary medical reason for inappropriate urination will be identified, treatment implemented and the
problem resolved. However, in other cases there will be no primary medical problem identified or even after resolution/control of an iden-
tified medical issue, inappropriate urination continues. In the latter case, the medical problem may have been the initiating cause but behav-
ioral issues maintain inappropriate urination, despite successful control/resolution of primary medical problems. For cats with continued
inappropriate urination despite diagnosis and management of all primary medical issues, the following questions should be considered:

Indicate number of boxes
Question** Answer with each characteristic:
1. Does your cat urinate on vertical surfaces outside the litter box? YES NO Box style:
Covered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
2. Does your cat urinate on horizontal surfaces outside the litter box? YES NO Uncovered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
Large. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
3. Does your cat seek out certain targets for urination? YES NO Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
Small. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
4. Do these targets have a common quality (e.g. all soft, absorbent With plastic liner . . . . . . . . . ____
materials, certain room, always slick surfaces)? YES NO
Litter type:
5. Is the quantity of urine deposited very small? YES NO Unscented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
Scented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
6. Does your cat defecate outside the litter box? YES NO Clumping (sand-like). . . . . . . ____
Recycled paper (pellets) . . . . ____
7. Does your cat ever use the litter box? YES NO Crystal (silica) . . . . . . . . . . . ____
Non-clumping clay . . . . . . . ____
8. Does your cat dig in its litter when it uses the litter box? YES NO Wheat clumping . . . . . . . . . ____
Corn clumping . . . . . . . . . . . ____
9. Is there more than one cat in the household? YES NO Pine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
Other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____
10. Does your cat ever fight or appear frightened of other pets
or people in the household? YES NO Cleaning schedule for Check rate
litter boxes
11. Are the litter boxes all in the same site/room/area/floor Scooping:
of the home? YES NO Multiple times per day
Once per day
Once every other day
Total number of litter boxes in the house . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twice a week
Once a week or less often

Complete box change
(wash, new litter):
Daily
Weekly
Every two weeks
Monthly
*Adapted from Neilson JC. FLUTD: When should you call the behaviorist? In: Every 2-3 months
Proceedings. Hill’s Symposium on Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease, 2007: 20-28 Every 3-6 months
(www.hillsvet.com/conferenceproceedings). Every year or more
**“YES” answers for Questions 1 and 5 may indicate urine marking. Never

previously in 10 of the male cats. In another study, 32 cats (10 average of 19 days after beginning nutritional management. No
males, 22 females) with struvite uroliths were fed either a dry or occurrences of urethral obstruction were reported. Approx-
g
moist version of a dissolution food (Houston et al, 2004). imately 30% of cats had radiographic evidence of urolith disap-
Mean time for dissolution in cats eating moist food (3.73 pearance after two weeks of feeding the dissolution food.Time
weeks) was not significantly different from those eating dry to resolution of clinical signs or urolith dissolution did not dif-
food (4.82 weeks) (p = 0.066). Clinical signs resolved in an fer significantly with the number of uroliths.