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My family needs some help with one of our cats. We are totally at our wits end. We adopted two cats, a male and a female from the same litter in August 2010. The female cat has always been more skittish. For a long time I was the only one she would come up to and rub up against and cuddle with me. Gradually, she became more friendly with the rest of the family. She still hides when we have people over and if any visitor or stranger tries to her approaches her she hisses and claws. For about a year now she has started peeing on stuff. She has peed on our bed, on our living room carpet, on our children’s backpacks, and on our luggage in the garage to just name a few. We have a bin of shoes in our hallway under the stair and twice in the past month she has climbed into that and peed on all the shoes while looking right at us. Of course when all this started last year the first thing we did was bring her to a vet to confirm that it was not a medical issue. We even ended up bringing her a second time to a different vet to double check. The obvious question is, did anything change before she started peeing? We have searched and search for an answer to the question and we cannot figure anything out. The vet did give us some advice that we followed. We bought 2 new litter boxes so now we have 3 litter boxes in three different places around the house. The one in the hallway, (next to the bin of shoes she pees on) seems to be her favorite, but even still sometimes she pees on stuff like the shoes or my kids’ backpacks that are just a few feet away. In fact most of it, about 90%, happens within the same 10 foot radius. We have tried using enzymes and other sprays to cover the smell. Two weeks ago we went ahead and completely replaced the carpets and under padding. This morning she peed on my son’s new backpack that was on the new carpet. I am at a total loss right now. We have literally spent well over a $1000.00 dealing with this. The vets have both told us that this is behavioral and there is something that the cat is unhappy about. I have no idea what it could be and at this point I’m about ready to start looking for someone willing to take her. Any advice would great.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:57
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 14:56 |
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It's almost always a territorial issue. Are there outside cats that come around your yard? That can be a huge source of kitty stress and cause territorial peeing. Another thing is, your post didn't mention, is she spayed? An intact cat is gonna pee all over no matter what you do because hormones. I assume she is but you never know. How do your cats get along? Sometimes one bossy cat will prevent other household cats from getting to litter boxes and such because "this is mine." On the other hand she might be trying to use her pees to keep the other cat out of HER space. A good solution to this is cat trees and cat shelving, so they have the vertical space to stay out of each other's way and can move around the house either at ground level OR above it. So they can always avoid each other if they want to. Good luck. Cat pee is the worst.
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Apr 24, 2015 20:20
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We do have a couple of outdoor cats in our neighborhood. We see them around our house every once in a while. Is there a way to use some type of spray to keep them away? Yes we did get her spayed about a year after we got her. The cats get along OK. Our male cat is active a playful. The two cats cuddle and sleep together but they don't play together. Our female cat just spends most of her time laying around. She is hardly active at all and has been getting kinda fat. When the male cat tries to play with her she usually flips out an hisses at him. The litter box that she uses in the hall under the stairs is hers. The other cat doesn't use it at all. Do you think she could be peeing in the vicinity of that litter box to keep him away? If that is the case how do we fix that?
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Apr 24, 2015 22:26
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Move the litterbox somewhere else. If it's in an area that she can block off with a pee spot she will. I would make that hallway a no-pee zone entirely, and keep using the enzyme cleaner if she does go there. Is this area near a door to outside? If so I'd bet that there are neighborhood cats causing this. There are home-remedy type cat repellents floating around the Internet as well as stuff you can get at the hardware store, sprays and powders and stuff like that. Depending on where you live, the local animal control may be able to help with unwanted cat removal.
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Apr 24, 2015 23:16
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I'm not sure if there is a way to do this but can you put her litterbox in a place where the other cat cannot get to it? They might be having a territorial pee war around that box. Are you positive that she's the only culprit? After we moved our cat peed on a few things near the front door most likely because there are a ton of strays on the block. We only knew because we smelled it. We never caught him in the act. We got an ultrasonic repellent thing for the front porch and we moved the box closer to the front door and he stopped. Pixelated Dragon fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 18:23
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I recommend watching some of Jackson Galaxy's MyCatFromHell episodes or his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFphS8VMNZc Almost all of his information is about fixing cat behavioral issues (or human behavioral issues), to keep a cat in the home and not in a shelter. Tons of it is about cat pee. He's had ultrasonic repellent mechanisms as well as motion activated water sprayers on his show to keep animals away from the house, to prevent territorial marking. You can also do little things, like putting away things she likes to pee on. She likes peeing on backpacks, so mount some hooks on the walls and train your kids to hang up their bookbags after school. I would have really recommended waiting to replace your carpeting and underpadding until your kitty peeing issues were fixed first, but too late now. I think you may have set yourself for frustration in that regard. Good luck and do lots of research. Your issue isn't an unusual issue at all and there are lots of resources on the web.
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Apr 25, 2015 23:54
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Just an update for anyone who may be having a similar issue. We did take her to the vet again. The vet was convinced that there is something in the environment causing her stress. She is probably trying to mark the area. It might even be her own brother that is getting on her nerves. We cleaned up the area around the litter and we make sure to not leave anything on the floor in those certain hotspots. It seems like she only pees in those spots if something is on the floor there. We also now have 4 litter boxes in four different places around the house. The cats do use all four of them. One of them is in our master bedroom because that seems to be a room she feels really safe in. Oddly that is not the one used the most. The situation is not ideal but it is better than having to give her up.
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Jul 13, 2015 21:52
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Everyone has given all the advice that I've heard or would give but I just wanted to say, good on you for continuing to try  A lot of people wouldn't, you're a good cat-haver. As the owner of a fellow piss-cat, keep fighting the good fight.
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Jul 16, 2015 15:36
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Try putting a feliway diffuser near where she is peeing inappropriately. You can also try the litter cat attract, which has pheromones that attract cats topics on it.
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Jul 17, 2015 17:32
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we had a cat problem with a neighbours cat coming and pissing on our doors and it caused all sorts of woes with our girly cat. Cat trap with a can of tuna in it on the front porch, caught the tomcat pissing on our doors, had a good old fight with it transfering it from the cat trap to pet pack (use better gloves than I did or it will cost you a trip to the doctors) and our cats calmed RIGHT down. Other cat hasnt been game to come near my house again either. We scared the poo poo out of it.
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Jul 28, 2015 15:09
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 14:56 |
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I would also recommend instead of (or in addition to) the Feliway diffuser a pheromone cat collar. We have an anxious bengal who previously peed on many things and the collar helped a lot. It was recommended by our vet. Keep it very loose though as they are not breakaway collars and they need to be able to slide off easily. (also, these are supposed to last about a month but I was told we could get away with 2 months on one) This one is a bit more expensive but more effective. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...TTHRRSFVE631MT1 or http://www.amazon.com/SENTRY-Calmin...heromone+collar Rosehip fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 21:00
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