Cat lovers - help!

kelly422 · March 2014

I have 2 cats. One is 9 and the other is 3 - had both since they were kittens. Last August we moved to this new house - and it was the first time DH and I lived together. Well, the older cat started going to the bathroom on things - usually my stepsons stuff and DH's stuff. Took him to the vet, not sick. I think he was probably stressed at all the new things. Well now it's 7 months later and he's still doing it! All over the carpet, anything that's on the floor, couches, rugs, etc. We keep doors closed to rooms he does it in but some we can't close off!

A few months ago I put him in a big kennel and then slowly let him out for longer periods to see if having his own space helped. He didn't mind the kennel at all, but he's obviously still going to the bathroom.

I'm at my wits end what to do with him. I've always heard once they start doing this, it's hard to get them to stop. Any tips?

ColieAnn31 · March 2014

You might try retraining him to the litter box. Do you have a room that you can keep him in while you retrain him? We had to do this with one of our cats. We put her in a bathroom we don't use for a week with food, water, and a litter box. We would make sure her litter box was clean and we would let her out for a little bit a couple times a day to play with her. This helped retrain our car.

kelly422 · March 2014

@ColieAnn31‌ That's pretty much what I did when I kept him kenneled. He had his food, water, and litter box in there and I gradually let him out for longer periods of time.

He still goes in the litter box - I've watched him. It's like he's just being an ass and going on things now.

cafecreme · March 2014

My cat was stressed out 1.5 years ago when we left him for 2 days, and when we got home he was spraying all over the place and from the stress caused a urinary blockage.

We did these things:

1.Bought pheromone spray that helps calm cats..seriously, spray it all over the place, couch, his toys, everywhere.

2. Buy him his own cat tree. He needs his own "place" that doesn't smell like anything else except him. Although, that might be tough because you have another cat.

We were lucky enough that he was so young that he outgrew it in only a month or so. If your cat is older...he may be spraying for the rest of his life.

This is a really tough and sucky situation, I really hope he stops! I would hate to see an older cat go to the shelter...that's basically a death sentence for them. I would release him into the wild before I ever thought of doing that.

Also, we didn't do this, but I heard leaving a ton of litter boxes around might help. I watch too much "My cat from hell" lol

ilovemarfa · March 2014

Is he drinking a lot?? What kind of litter do you use? I just brought our male
Cat to the vet a fee weeks ago. He was urinating in our dining room on the carpet. He only was doing it for a few weeks until it started to stink. We had no idea it was happening as we don't use the room much. We ended up having to rip the carpet out but that's another story. At any rate, I had changed litter (worlds best non scented to scented) as they were out of the kind of I regularly use. At any
Rate at the vets they ran a urine culture and blood work and discovered he was in kidney failure- common in older cats and not treatable. The vet said that wasn't a reason for the inappropriate elimination though. We changed all of the litter back to the original and had to get rid of the pee scent so we ripped up the carpet and put hardwood down. He hasn't peed anywhere but his box since. If the scent is still there, cats will continue to pee outside the box. I would see if it's gotten on the floor or furniture. Good luck!

kelly422 · March 2014

@Beary+Ghastly Thanks - I'll look into those tips. We won't get rid of him. He's been my baby for the last 9 years. He may just have to live in one room of the house if we can't fix the problem which makes me sad...

@ilovemarfa He's not drinking a lot - that's pretty much normal. The vet did labs and hew as fine. I use the big bag of cat litter from Sam's Club (can't remember the name), but it's the same litter we've used for years and years. This is why we actually recently ripped out carpet and put in laminate in my craft's room.

@kames12 I do have that spray - the stuff that's supposed to neutralize the odor. I have doused the places he's gone many times - he just keeps going in new places

Murphie82 · March 2014

My female cat started peeing in random places in the last few months. The vet decided it was because of stress and gave us some antibiotics, which we just finished giving to her last week. I'm sure part of the stress is related to B and all the changes that have taken place since he's started crawling - baby gates, moved the cat food off the floor, moved the litter box, etc.

I second what others have said about getting the cat a cat tree and trying the pheromone spray stuff.

Have you been playing with the cat less since LO was born? We definitely haven't been giving our cat the same amount of attention so we're trying to be better about that and give her a decent amount of play time in the morning and evening when B is asleep. Between the antibiotics and the play time, she hasn't used anything but her litter box so I think one or both helped.

Good luck! I hope you're able to find a solution.

kelly422 · March 2014

Thanks, everyone!

@bleachy14 I wouldn't expect anything less than a novel

Cat lovers - help!

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