www.newrivervalley.com

Paws & Claws

Jill Bowen has practiced veterinary medicine in England and Texas. She lives in Blacksburg now, and answers local pet owners' questions every week in The Roanoke Times and roanoke.com.

Recent columns

• High school biology can explain calico coloring
• Vaccinating your cat comes with small cancer risk
• Although rare, cat scratch fever can occur after bite, scratch
• Halloween is not a treat for most pets

Q Our neighbor's cat has kittens. We are taking one but don't know whether to take a male or a female.

A There are subtle behavior differences between male and female cats. Unneutered male cats (toms) are more destructive and more active than female cats (queens). Queens are usually more playful and friendly and are often cleaner and more affectionate.

Tom cats roam over large areas that they mark by spraying with their pungent urine. Toms fight for possession of their territory and the right to mate with any receptive queen in the area. Neutering male cats helps reduce their roaming tendencies, spray marking and fighting behaviors. Toms castrated before puberty do not develop the typical secondary sexual characteristics, but if they are neutered after puberty they will retain these characteristics, which consist of large cheek jowls, prominent cheek ruffs and thick neck skin. Queens have a more delicate facial and bone structure and are smaller than males.

All cats, unless being kept for breeding, should be neutered. It is a myth that female cats should have one litter before being spayed. In fact, they do better if spayed before puberty because they are then less likely to develop mammary cancer. Male cats at puberty develop strong-smelling urine that they use to mark their territory, and this includes your house both inside and out. The smell is pervasive and hard to eradicate. At puberty toms become more sexually aggressive, actively seeking out females to mate with, and they remain like this year round. Female cats have two peak breeding periods -- in the spring and fall. If the queen is not mated, she will remain in season for as long as three weeks. This encourages all the local tomcats to hang around outside the house with the subsequent spray marking, yowling and fighting. Cats do not form pair bonds and are not monogamous, and once mated the queen ignores the tom. Queens will often mate with several different toms while in heat.

Neutering suppresses most of the undesirable male characteristics, and a castrated male behaves more like a spayed female, who in turn behaves like an out-of-season female. Kittens should be left with their mother until fully weaned -- about 8 weeks -- by which time she will have taught them to use the litter box and some manners. Kittens should be handled by people so they adjust well to being part of a family.

Q What is Jacobson's organ? I read in my cat book that cats have them, and I had never heard of it.

A Jacobson's organ is another name for the vomeronasal organ, a special structure in the roof of a cat's mouth. Its primary use is to enable male cats to find queens that are in heat. Cats sniff in short bursts because the act of sniffing disrupts their regular breathing. The smell enters the vomeronasal organ, and nerve endings transmit this information to the brain, where the smell is memorized. Cats are fastidious about their food and, being true carnivores, do not usually like human food unless they are very hungry and forced to scavenge. Cats always sniff their food before eating and are particularly attracted to meat -- especially fatty meat. Once the smell of the food is agreeable, the cat will taste it.

Cats have twice as many smell receptors as people. These are used not only in food detection but also to detect the presence of other cats and potential dangers.

Jill Bowen has practiced veterinary medicine in England and Texas. She lives in Blacksburg now, and answers local pet owners' questions every week in The Roanoke Times and roanoke.com.