In a suburban environment where there are houses and backyards (gardens) close together and where there are cat owners, often the backyard of one home is shared by more than one cat as each claims it as part of their home range. In areas of dense home and cat owning families there will be a mosaic of cat territories, the boundaries of which criss-cross several backyards. As you can imagine the human-created boundaries between homes are not necessarily the boundaries of the territories of the domestic cats living in the homes.
If a person buys a home in such an area and that person has a cat, the cat is going to parachuted into a potentially hostile environment when they go out into ‘their’ backyard. A neighbouring cat might consider that area as part of their home range.
This may lead to the newcomer to the area failing to establish their territory outside their owner’s home. And this may happen with a cat who’s lived in the area for a while.
Just the other day my cat attacked a beautiful Ragdoll who had been allowed outside. She had wandered down a right of way passage at the rear of my backyard and then into it under a fence. She had entered my cat’s home range and he was unhappy. She was very submissive and rolled onto her back to signal that state of mind but my cat ignored the signal and attacked her.
He violently chased her away on top of the entire 100-yard length of a ten-foot brick wall at the rear. I feared that she might have got lost. My cat was untroubled as it was all in a day’s work. No big deal.
However, for the Ragdoll the area outside her owner’s home is going to become hostile after the traumatic experience. She may stay indoors.
Here are some other signs that a cat is failing to establish a territory outside their owner’s home:
- Not leaving the house despite the owner allowing it with a cat flap and even encouraging it.
- Waiting at the backdoor to be let out because they are fearful that there is a dominant cat outside the cat flap.
- A neighbouring cat enters the cat’s home via the cat flap as they consider both their backyard and the home as part of their home range.
- Leaves the house when their owner is in the backyard but will not go into the backyard alone.
- Spends a lot of time watching what is going on outside the house but not venturing out.
- Runs into the house via the cat flap to a place that is far from the cat flap.
- Interacts with the owner in a tense way which may include playing too rough.
- Rarely engaging in redirected aggression and biting their owner as they’ve been attacked and/or scared by a dominant cat from a neighbouring home.
- Due to stress buildup, urinating and perhaps defecating inside the home especially near the cat flap or other access points to the home. This is scent marking territory and it is more likely to be male cat behaviour as males are more protective of their home ranges.
- Other signs of stress such as overgrooming even to the point of ‘barbering’ which is hair removal. Note: the major reason for hair loss in cats is stress leading to overgrooming which is a calming behaviour.
Some cat owners decide to keep their cats inside for the above the reason and other reasons e.g., to keep their cats safe from predators and traffic. However, these cats may suffer from stress for the same reasons as mentioned above if there is more than one cat in the home.
And of course, a cats territory can be quite dramatically squeezed if the home is standard-sized and if there are several cats in the home. This is one reason why stresses are more likely in multi-cat homes. Another is a lack of environmental enrichment for full-time indoor cats.
The issues of domestic cat ‘home ranges‘ is a very real one that a lot of cat caregivers are often not sufficiently aware of. The desire to have a home range comes from the domestic cats wild ancestor. It is a deeply engrained behaviour trait. And for male cats it is perhaps more important than for females. Perhaps this is one reason why a female cat allowed outside might be better in terms of peace of mind for the owner. There will be less fights.
