Scent Rubbing and Spraying
See also: Cat communication#ScentThis behavior is used primarily to claim ownership of something, each cat releases a different pheromone combination from scent glands found in the cheeks next to their mouths. They also have scent glands towards the base of the tail. Unlike intact male cats, female and neutered male cats usually do not spray. Neutered males may still spray after neutering, if neutered late. Female cats often spray while in heat, so males can find them. Spaying may cause female cats to spray through loss of female hormones, also making them act more like males, which is why some female cats start spraying after being spayed, but if they started spraying before being spayed, it is most likely caused by female hormones, and they may stop after getting spayed.
Read more about this topic: Cat Behavior
Famous quotes containing the words scent, rubbing and/or spraying:
“Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
Unfriendly to society’s chief joys.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“Men often compete with one another until the day they die; comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the table, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)