Living with a whole male cat

When Your Sweet Boy Kitten Becomes a Breeding Male

When I decided to breed Napoleon (Minuet) cats, my first concern was what it would be like to have a mature male cat in the house. I had images of a rutting tomcat running around, spraying the walls, furniture, and bedding. I had seen my fair share of My Cat from Hell television episodes to know that it was entirely possible. It was a fear I had that was enough to make me think twice about taking on this endeavor. And it is something that every prospective cat breeder should consider before they enter the business. Questions that should come to mind for any prospective breeder are: Do you want your house to smell like a male cat; Can you afford to replace expensive furniture or bedding, even clothes, if your male cat pees on them; Do you have a place to put your male cat to contain his spraying that is also humane; Do you have a strategy if you cannot handle this type of behavior? I had to face every one of these questions—and more—during the time my boy matured.

I was so enamored with the idea of having a life full of kittens that I conveniently put off those concerns until later, while I didn’t have a mature boy of my own. I had access to a male stud that I would fly in to breed with my girls and that I could return in a few weeks while I was looking for my own male stud. Since I wanted all my cats to be family pets, as well as breeders, I intended to buy a male cat to raise from a kitten so we could love him. That was important to my husband and me. And that is just what we did.

We used a borrowed stud for our first breeding with our girls. He was a beautiful, friendly male that was only eight months old, still basically a kitten himself, and it was his first attempt at breeding. He was such a darling young cat that I was smitten with him. He had full run of the lower level of the house and would come up to spend the evenings with my husband and me for love and attention. He was such a people cat, it was easy to love him. When it was time for him to go home, we missed him dearly. It was a no-brainer when we considered the use of a stud again to use him a second time because our newly acquired male kitten, Claude, was still too young to breed.

We got Clawed Lemieux as a kitten from Judy’s Cuties, just as we intended, but it was time to breed our girls again, so we had to use a stud. We asked the owner of the previous stud if we could use him again, and she said yes. However, when we brought the stud in, we discovered that he had definitely matured. My fears were realized. That sweet eight-month-old male that I would watch TV with in bed was no longer allowed in our room. He definitely smelled like a male cat and he sprayed everywhere. I regretfully had to contain him to the lower level of the house, but that didn’t prevent him from spraying on our theater couch and a recliner, making those candidates for the garbage, a huge expense to replace when he went back home.

That was my first experience with a mature male cat in the house and I was mortified. But I still couldn’t believe that my sweet little boy kitten would ever become that bad. I kept putting off the inevitable possibility by focusing on how wonderful my little guy smelled. As long as he smelled like a kitten, he was all right in my book. He had free reign in the whole house and could cuddle with us in bed. He bunked with our girls (cats, of course) and was a part of the family. Then the inevitable happened.

Claude went through maturity almost overnight. He suddenly had this stink about him that was truly offensive. He started to annoy the girls by constantly hounding them. He was completely invested in asserting his claim on every room in the house. He marked his territory in my husband’s computer bag, on the dogs’ beds, by the sliding glass doors, and in every sink in the house. I was horribly appalled and at my wits’ end. Our house smelled abysmally like a cattery. In my mind, there was no way I could live like that. I am neurotic about cleanliness, but no amount of air fresheners could get rid of the stench that Claude was emanating.

I told my husband that we were done with the breeding business. I was ready to make an appointment to have Claude neutered and our girls spayed. But my husband quietly patted me on the shoulder and said not to be too hasty. He was sure that we could figure it out. I knew what that meant; he expected me to do research and solve the problem on my own.

I have always been someone to research ad nauseam whatever I was invested in. I contacted other breeder friends and asked them what they did with their male cats to help with the smell and marking. I was told to confine Claude to a single room that I didn’t mind getting ruined. That advice didn’t help at all. It meant the end of loving my boy as a family pet. I turned to the all-wise Internet to see what that vast bastion of information could offer. However, every article I read said that male breeder cats could not be considered family pets and should be confined to a separate structure such as a shed or a garage. That was not an option. I was not going to give up my family pet just to be a breeder. That was not what I wanted out of this and I would give up breeding to keep Claude as part of the family.

The next step was to look at Claude’s stink as the same as a person’s body odor. We use deodorant to cover up our own smell, so I started searching for deodorant for cats. There wasn’t a lot on the market designed for covering up the smell of a cat but I was able to find a few products from grooming web sites. I purchased a slew of these and they worked relatively well, but not permanently, of course. Just like human deodorant, I had to reapply the spray when the smell returned; however, it was manageable. So I had one problem solved—somewhat—but there was still the problem with his marking around the house.

I started thinking outside the box. What else could I do to keep breeding without having our house smell like a male cat or turning our beloved boy into livestock, stowing him away in a “shed.” I came up with the idea of neutering Claude and co-owning a male that would live with someone else. That became a very real possibility, but then another option came into play. After doing some more research on the Internet, I discovered that there is a drug that can reduce the male sex drive in a cat, which would let me schedule breedings with Claude, then put him out of commission in between breedings. Knowing that I had options made Claude’s maturity less distressing.

Claude’s marking was atrocious for the first week, but then it surprisingly tapered off. He wasn’t cured but he seemed to get a grip on it. He would spot pee here and there, but we learned how to drive his urge for marking to a litter box. That meant putting more litter boxes in areas where he could reach them. He still has a penchant for peeing in a sink, but we put some water in the bottom and that defeated him. He stopped going there to spray. He also honed in on the dog beds, but we put them up when he’s in a room with one. If we caught him marking where he shouldn’t, we immediately scolded him and put him in a litter box.

The problem hasn’t resolved itself completely but it got better for a while. I felt like we’d gotten a handle on it. I had options available where I could keep my precious boy as a family pet, but who also could breed for us. I intended to give Claude the medication that reduces his sex drive in between planned breedings and to reduce his anxiety when he wasn’t allowed to breed, while also giving our girls a break from his constant harassment and to prevent accidental pregnancies. So maybe Claude’s maturing wasn’t such a bad thing after all. I’d learned some things and adjusted a few ways of dealing with him, but training was still a work in progress.

Now Claude is five years old and he’s been a successful breeding stud. He’s produced incredibly beautiful and healthy kittens. He’s reached the highest title a cat can receive in TICA, becoming a Supreme Grand Champion, and he is a magnificent specimen of the Minuet breed. He is also quite the stud, even as a dwarf cat, able to get the job done, when many male Minuets cannot. I am glad I didn’t neuter him. So, has it all been a bed of roses?

Hell no! Being a prolific breeding cat, Claude comes with the problem of male spraying. He goes through periods of time when he doesn’t and then he does. We have learned to live with it, using a ton of Nature’s Miracle spray on his markings. Nature’s Miracle has been exactly what it’s named: a miracle. When Claude sprays, it’s immediately evident. You smell lit. One of us often cries out, “I smell Claude!” At that point, we break out the UV light if it’s dark and check out his usual haunts. Once we find his spotting, we spray it with Nature’s Miracle and that breaks down the mess, where we can then wipe it up. Because cat urine is oil based, it sticks to surfaces. Without using a chemical spray to break down the oils in the urine, you’ll never get rid of it. But Nature’s Miracle does just that.

One thing Claude does that I will never understand and I haven’t yet figured out how to defeat him on it: He sprays on the communal pet water bowl in the laundry room. I can’t fathom why he would pee in water that he himself drinks from, but it is a daily routine. It boggles the mind and requires constant washing of the water bowl and five-gallon bottle. We have since switched the bottle out to a single gallon bottle, since we have to clean it every day, but I just wish he wouldn’t ruin what the other cats and dogs drink from.

Overall, we have learned to live with a spraying male cat and not compromised our wishes to have him as part of the family. It has been frustrating at times, but having him as part of the family has made him a happy cat. A happy cat helps produce happy kittens. It is well worth the trouble to have well-adjusted kittens. And for the last four years as a breeding male, Claude has developed a routine that we have had to live with. That’s life living with a cat.

My beautiful Claude in all his glory.