Said author has witnessed dozens of bobcats marking vertical structures, like the one in the photo below, as well as digging places to place their droppings. Based on said observations, which include identification of the cats' gender, the author has some very specific conclusions about so-called markings. The author has also correlated those conclusions with the findings of biologists and others from published, peer-reviewed articles o confirm that those conclusions are accurate (with the proviso that no animal behavior is 100% predictable). Generally speaking, male bobcats urinate on vertical structures like walls, rocks and trees. They also generally do not over mark like canines do (in other words, when they smell where
another cat urinated, they generally do not urinate on that spot to mark their territory (they may re-mark their prior urination spots). Rather, they avoid confrontation and typically smell the other guy's urine, and then go about their business. After watching dozens of cats dig places to leave droppings, the author has never seen a cat cover its droppings. Why would they leave a communication object like a dropping, and then cover it up??
Females generally are the ones that maintain "toilets" with their characteristic scooped areas in the dirt with droppings. Males are highly interested in these locations and visit them often to gather the information they provide. However, contrary to common beliefs, the males are not the ones running around leaving droppings everywhere. Their behavior is much different than canines in this regard.
As to their digging with their back feet (and scratching objects -- formerly erroneously believed to be sharpening their claws), cats have several glands in their feet and around their toes that emit pheromones (odorless chemical substances) to also mark their territories and communicate other information (that we probably don't understand a lot about). Because the information in feces, urine and digging marks is communicated via pheromones, that information is interpreted by the cat via its vomeronasal organ and cats will show a Flehman response.
Anyway, if you catch the author in the right mood with plenty of time on his hands, he will talk your ear off about such information whether you want to hear about it or not.
![[Linked Image]](https://trapperman.com/forum/attachments/usergals/2023/06/full-25559-181349-cat_wall.png)