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July 2011 Moms
Mrs.Leah.Maria
member
XP: Advice re: carpet urinating cat {Long}
Mrs.Leah.Maria
member
I'm really at my wits end and unfortunately I'm stuck in a pretty bad spot with my 5 year old cat Callie. I adopted her when I was in college and she's managed every change with ease: moving from college to my parents house, parents house to first home, first home to second home, living with a 50lb lab, adopting a new kitten, the death of my oldest cat and finally bringing home DS two years ago. Honestly, none of these caused any negative impact or reaction from her!
Please bear in mind that we live in
a 1 1/2 story house with the upstairs being our bedroom. Due to the
slanted ceiling a door is not an option and is not used. About 6 months
ago, with no changes other than my being pregnant, we noticed that she
periodically peed on the dog's bed in our bedroom. At first we kind of
thought it was funny, as it seemed to be the punchline to any cat vs
dog joke, but as the months have gone on it's become a multiple times
per day occurrence with any stray pile of clothes also drawing her
attention. The carpet under the dog bed is obviously ruined and there's
only so much shampooing you can do, so we are quite put off by our
bedroom.
In an attempt to stop this behavior, we have in this order:
- Ruled out a UTI or bladder infection by way of the vet
- Moved the litter box to within inches of the dog bed [dog snacks of cat poop are obviously on the rise]
- Cleaned the litter box twice daily [DH gets props for this]
- Removed the dog's bed
- Bought a "calming" lavendar collar
- Bought a Feliway Plug-In Diffuser
We just don't know what to do any more, as she is continuing to pee on the carpet regardless of if there is a dog bed or that her clean litter box is just inches away.
We are about to welcome our 2nd child into
our house and to be honest, this is one of my biggest stressers in
expanding our family. My cat is making me hate my house, because I
don't feel like it's sanitary. Now clearly I don't want to be the next one flamed to high heavens because I'm considering surrendering an animal, but I just don't know what to try or do next! The greatest thing is that DH is totally in this with me. Even as a self proclaimed dog person, he is not jumping to the conclusion that we need to get rid of her, but is trying to exhaust all options!
Isaac Levi 4/26/09 : BFP#2 - MC 9w : Ezra John 6/26/11 : Miriam Joy 4/12/13 : Naomi Ann 9/2/14
This discussion has been closed.
Re: XP: Advice re: carpet urinating cat {Long}
My best friends cat started doing this same thing in her craft room. The vet told them to get rid of the cat box and get a shallow rubbermaid tub. It seemed to work for a while and then they took it away and he went back to his normal litter box.I would also try that Nature Miracle spray. Cats are funny some times. Very hard to tell why they do things.
I would never flame anyone for surrendering an animal as long as it was to a no kill shelter. I was in serious debates with DH about getting rid of our puggle. She would not stop popping and peeing in her crate. We did EVERYTHING that you are supposed to do, proper size cage, 5-6 outings a day, didn't over feed or water her. I discovered that she HAS to be in the same room (even if its in a crate) with our doberman. But she is spiteful. I will let her out for 45 minutes and then she will go into my dads room and pee on the carpet. I want to pin her up against a wall when she does that.
I hope it works out. Animals are great but they can be very stressful at times.
I had a cat from when I was young (around 8) and when I was in HS - she started peeing on my mom's couch in our living room. It ruined it. Although I can't recall the exact way we got her to stop, she did. I think we had to get rid of the smell infested item (couch in our situation.)
Try to treat the area with a product called Nature's Miracle and maybe get a black light to detect and treat any unknown areas.
I'd hate to see you be forced to get rid of your cat.
It's usually a stressful situation that causes a cat to behave like this. When did you get the kitten?
She may be a little stressed. I know this sounds crazy, but our cat (granted she's a lot older than 5) started freaking out and licking and scratching bald patches on herself. It was terribly sad. The vet thought she was having severe anxiety due to me being pregnant, and put her on Prozac. She went back to being herself almost immediately. Bald patches healed, no more licking, done. Might be something to speak with the vet about.
Also- the pills cost $5.
Good Luck!!!
I can't say this as far as female cats, because normally males mark their territory. There are some urine gone type sprays that make claims to end urination or spraying, but those are usually for males marking their territory as well. Orange cleaners work to remove the odor. She might be marking her territory in anticipation of the new baby, but normally male cats that more of that than females. I would recommend using a blacklight to look for any urine and cleaning it well. Removing all traces of the urine may help to stop this behavior.
My sister's female cat did that after my sister had twins, but she found a new home for the cat so that doesn't help you much there.
I hope that helps.
In addition to the PPs suggestion of removing ALL smell (she may be going back to the same place because she smells her prior urine on it), if you can't close a door, what about putting a whole bunch of double-sided tape on the stairs leading up your room? Cats hate that stuff. Leave enough room so that you can walk to your room, but space it out so that small little feline steps would require the cat to come in contact with the tape. Try it for a week, and see if that stops her from going upstairs.
Also, what about a change in litter? Is she declawed? Sometimes, the litter can start to irritate the paws.
Do you guys have a basement with a door or another small room that you can keep her in? Maybe you can keep her there for a few days until she "retrains" herself to use the box?
BFP #3 via cancelled IUI ~ C (2lb 3oz; HELLP) 5/16/11
BFP #4 via the natural (free!) way ~ E (8lb 11oz) 9/13/12
We have actually been experiencing a similar problem with our 6 year old male cat. He's always been a little piece of sh!t but we love him so much. He's neutered but the vet believes he still has one testicle, which makes him very hormonal and odd. Anyways, he started "spraying" by our front door and we bought this stuff that seemed to help. What also helped was covering the spot with a bench so he couldn't spray in that spot (because he would only pee in one particular area). The spray I linked to up above is a little pricey but it did seem to help.
I hope you can find a solution without giving up your kitty!
Thank you so much for the understanding and suggestions you guys!
We'd been using an Arm & Hammer product, so I'm going to have to try Nature's Miracle.
The kitten is now 4, so should be a non-issue as they've had years together.
Great to know! How much of a supply does this buy?
I think we'll have to try the double-sided tape. We don't have carpeting up our stairs, so it should work pretty well.
I would go the litter change route, but she does use the litter box [to both poop and pee], just not exclusively.
We do have a basement, but DH hasn't wanted to force her downstairs due to the current food bowl situations. It really should be something we consider more though!
I'll have to look into how this is different from the Feliaway diffuser that we have! Could be an option!
A couple more suggestions for you...
try getting a new litter box? sometimes the plastics can hold on to the urine smell. we have two and swap them out regularly and clean them with bleach in between uses.
try taping tinfoil over the spot in the carpet. cats don't like the feeling of foil on their feet, so she won't walk there.
Hope this helps! My kitties have been acting up too since I got pregnant. The vet said it's probably a stress thing.
BFP #3 via cancelled IUI ~ C (2lb 3oz; HELLP) 5/16/11
BFP #4 via the natural (free!) way ~ E (8lb 11oz) 9/13/12
20 10mg pills, cut into thirds, so 60 pills. We were told to give them to her daily, but we've been giving them to her every other day instead. The once a day just seemed to be too much for her little cat body, haha. So, they've lasted quite awhile.
Thank you so much for sharing!
Sure. Hopefully you're able to figure something out. Dealing with cat urine is awful.
We had a cat behavorist out to our house to resolve a similar issue with our cats, and this is what he recommended. NO covered litterboxes (cats don't want to go in an enclosed box where all the smell is contained.) He said to get wide, low boxes, so ours are about 2 feet long by 1.5 feet wide, and about 6 inches tall. They are simple Rubbermaid underbed storage boxes from Target. Apparently most litterboxes sold in stores are too small for cats' preferences. Our cats greatly prefer these boxes. Also, do you have more than 1 box? He said to have 1 more box than you have cats (we have 2 cats, so need to have 3 boxes.) Also he rec'ed putting them in different areas of the house. He said some cats may not like to have to go all the way down into a basement if they are somewhere else, so have them on different floors of the house depending on where they hang out. (We now have 1 on each floor of our 3-story house, and they love it.) And lastly, yes, you would need to get rid of any smell that is already in that spot, and then put some kind of block or deterrent in that spot until the cat stops the behavior.
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Leah, I don't have any advice to offer you other than what has already been said... I just wanted to say ((HUGS)) and I'm sorry you're forced with a difficult decision of whether to keep your cat or not. You've obviously been a responsible pet owner so far & I don't think anyone would blame you for surrendering her at this point.
Try "Cat Attract" cat litter. It's a clumping litter that has something in it that smells like nature/soil to the cat and somehow makes them want to use it. I was skeptical at first, but it works!
I had a problem with my female cat marking my bedding or anything that fell on the bathroom floor (the cat box was in the bathroom at the time). I tried everything, I even had resorted to putting a plastic sheet over my bed when I wasn't home because I couldn't trust her. A coworker recommended the litter to me. I tried it and she hasn't marked my bedding since!! It's a little pricey, but it's worth it IMO.
ETA: I've tried Nature's Miracle (regular and just for cats formula) and thought that that specific brand was a waste of money. It didn't work for me, and is about $10 per bottle. I would recommend a different enzymatic cleaner (sorry I don't have any suggestions on brand though).
Wow, I could not relate any more to your post! My DH and I have had an ongoing (2 year) issue with my 4 year old kitty (also female) We tried a lot of the same things that you have tried to no avail! So, when we moved into our new home, we started her our in a smaller space and worked our way up. First, for a couple days, she was in a dog kennel, and when we found she was going consistently in that, we upgraded her to the cement room in our basement. Once that worked, we let her have free roam of the house. for about 9 months we had no problems. However, back in Dec (not long after getting pregnant and getting a new dog) she started urinating in the basement again. I was at my wits end. We had long before ruled out UTI (twice) and had tried multiple other solutions. One thing we discovered is that our little kitty is rather picky, so we added another litterbox in the basement (she likes one to pee in and one to poop in) and we tried a special litter called Cat Attract (there is also an additive you can buy called Cat Attract to put in the litter which she likes. Not sure if this has totally cleared the problem, but the multiple litter boxes have certainly helped.
Also, I've tried Nature's Miracle before, and it did not work for me as well. I think it depends on the severity of the area that you need to clean, and it's quite costly. However, my husband found a remedy online that consists of things you probaby have in the house: