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Hey all!! It’s been a while since I’ve been around!! Hope everyone is well!
Alright, I need some advice. Remember back in december & january when we lost our beloved cat Calvin. Then we got scammed on craig’s list with the white cat that turned out to not be good with dogs and kept biting my daughter….well, we kept him. Six months later he is still terrified of the dogs, but does come upstairs. He does still bite on occasion. Now tho, he has started peeing upstairs(not in the litter pan) intermittenly. Not all the time, not in the same place. My got the bathroom(which is tiled), our closet on a piece of luggage and now my daughter’s room on one of her baby doll totes and on her carpet…..Why would e start this now, or are we just finding out because it’s warm and humid? Would we be horrible to give him away?
Did he start doing this all of a sudden? My cat Sneezer started going outside the pan one day and it turned out he had a UTI. He was so miserable that he was just trying to ‘go’ everywhere. I could see though (from when he tried to go in the shower) that his urine was bloody. I picked up a little tip at the vet, if you put waxed paper in the bottom of the litter pan, you can get a urine sample pretty easily to take in to your vet.
He might just be marking his territory. Since the dogs have the downstairs, he’s declaring the upstairs to be his. Is he fixed?? Cause that should (just should, not a guarantee) stop the spraying.
Nothing wierd in the litter pan, and I never see him trying to go….I just don’t know. I feel bad all around, but I think we are going to bring him to the humane society(no kill). It’s a really hard decision to make because I have always beleived that once you get an animal you keep that animal. They are your responsibilty and part of your family. On the other hand, I can’t tolerate him peeing all over my new house and biting the kids.
Sometimes the cat just isn’t the right “fit” for the situation. If you’re taking it to a no kill shelter, you might be doing it a favor. It might be happier in a home where it is the only pet and/or one that doesn’t have children. You tried to give it a good home; sometimes that’s the best you can do.
The first thing to do is to rule out a medical reason. It is fairly common for cats to have urinary problems (especially males) and a change in where they ‘go’ can be one of the signs. I’d really suggest a vet check. 🙂 There may be NO outward signs that he’s having trouble!! Only a vet can tell you for sure. Be sure to ask them to check for any urinary or kidney problems..!
If it’s not medical, then you are in for some detective work. Some cats just spray- even fixed females. The thing is that this is a recently new behavior so there is a good chance there’s a reason for it. Finding the reason and correcting it is the real pain!
Has anything in your household changed lately? Work schedules, etc? Are your children home more or less now (I’m not sure how old they are)? The location of the litter box? Frequency of cleaning it? Sometimes it’s something really dumb that ‘sets them off’– something as simple as moving the furniture, or in our case, ceiling fans…When is he peeing? When everyone leaves? (I have known cats that get ‘mad’ when their people leave) Sometimes it’s hard to know when they do it, as you just happen to find the wet spot and odor later on…
I lived with a cat once that had such bad anxiety about weird things that anything could ‘set him off’ and he’d get panicky and go pee the house somewhere. He was deathly afraid of ceiling fans of all things, even when they were off, and the house we were in in GA had one in every single room….
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My art: featherdust.comThis is very interesting, and timely! Believe it or not I was just going to post the EXACT SAME QUESTION when I came on here!! I hope you don’t mind sharing, Asinnamon 😳 I don’t know much what to say about your cat, but it sounds like you’ve done what you can to give him a loving home and proper care, and he’s just having trouble adjusting. It’s always a very hard and personal decision to make. I hope you come to the best road for your family’s well-being and the kitty’s.
My keekee, Harley, seems to be up to similar antics. About 2 weeks ago I noticed him squatting on a towel near our front door like he was peeing. I shooed him off and put him by his litterbox, but not before waiting a minute to see if he would ACTUALLY do it…I had literally never seen him or caught any pee activity outside his litterbox. 😮 There was nothing on the towel! I even sniffed it to make sure (gross); absolutely no odor.
I chalked it up to the litterbox being dirty; since my arm was busted he has suffered a bit. I cleaned it and thought nothing else of the incident.
Then, I came home today after being gone for 3 days, and he’s squatting intermittently, still with no urine whatsoever coming out. And he’s growling! He has never growled in his life, except once when another cat came to the door. (Harley is an inside cat.) He has water, the litter box is due for a clean but there is plenty of room to scratch around still, and he has almost always been a good sport even when it was worse and I missed a day or two. I looked in the litter, and there are a normal amount of urine balls, normal poops, no blood in anything. I’ve been gone for extended periods of time before and he has never acted “retaliatory” like some kitties do. My sister has been here each day too. He’s neutered. Could he be growing into it? He’ll be 4 this July 4th. I’m worried about his urinary tract but the litterbox contents are normal. I’m thinking of taking him in for a checkup, but money is so tight right now I need to consider it carefully, especially if it’s a behavioral issue and not a health issue. ????
Chrisherself-that is just what Sneezer was doing the week he was on his UTI meds, squatting all over trying to go, but only able to go a drop or two at a time. I was worried he was blocked up, but the vet explained that he was going so often (literally hundreds of times a day) that he wasn’t letting his bladder fill up enough for a ‘normal’ amount of urine. It was a rough week for us both but eventually with his meds his UTI cleared up. 5 weeks later he started showing the same signs so I took him in right away, that time it cleared up in 3 days. Since then (4 years or so?) he’s taken Cosequin every day and hasn’t had any more issues.
(also-I could not tell his urine was bloody from looking in the litter box-had to learn the wax paper trick for that)
That’s good to know then. I love Harley so much, I’d hate to see him sick. He got sick when he was a kitten and I really thought I would lose him. I want to check right away then. I have wax paper. Do you take all the litter out and put JUST waxed paper in the bottom, or put it on top of the litter, or put the litter on top of the paper and let the urine seep down? Does it soak in? I’m a little confused there.
Oh–and is there an environmental trigger for UTIs in kitties, or is it just a biological tendency? Can they have cranberry juice? 😆 Kidding!
If not a UTI t is very likely crystals, male neutered cats get them very often, cheap cat food is a huge cause. Straining to pee, and attempting to pee places other than the litter box are huge clues. If it is crystals they may have to catheterize him and keep him a few days, then you may have to feed him a specialized diet to prevent it from happening.
chrisherself wrote:That’s good to know then. I love Harley so much, I’d hate to see him sick. He got sick when he was a kitten and I really thought I would lose him. I want to check right away then. I have wax paper. Do you take all the litter out and put JUST waxed paper in the bottom, or put it on top of the litter, or put the litter on top of the paper and let the urine seep down? Does it soak in? I’m a little confused there.
Oh–and is there an environmental trigger for UTIs in kitties, or is it just a biological tendency? Can they have cranberry juice? 😆 Kidding!
Now that I think about it, the reasoning for the wax paper was that Sneezer REFUSED to give a sample at the vet, and had to stay overnight. I kid you not, the boy held it for 14 hours before they were about to use a catheter(sp) when he FINALLY went for them-lol So to avoid him being a booger, we started taking a sample at home and bringing it in right away (crystals start to form if the sample just sits out). I put the wax paper on top of the litter, he we going so often that he hopped in immediately and ‘went’ a few drops for me anyway. Just carefully pick up the paper and pour what you can into a little cup 😛
(also, if you have more than one cat, you have to make sure you get the right one to ‘go’ for you! lol)
Thanks so much for the advice you guys! Although, at this point, I’m going to start a thread so as not to run over our original poster 🙁
Both of my cats used to be terrible “sprayers”. And they’re a neutered male and female. It probably started a few months down the line after we got them. We didn’t have any other pets at the time which made the reason all the more puzzling but it was assumed they just wanted to mark their territory. It was just a case of catching them in the act and moving them along so they didn’t spray quite so often. Sadly it didn’t stop for years – I literally just one day noticed I hadn’t smelt anything dubious for a few months. It seems as though middle-age just calmed them down perhaps. We’ve since moved house and they’re still not spraying (although they’ve both experienced cystitis in their old age which wasn’t pleasant).
I don’t think you’d be horrible to give your cat away though. He’s probably not entirely happy with the situation he’s currently in and it might be best if he goes to a home without other pets. 🙂 You can only do your best.
Hoestly I think it’s behavoiral and not medical. I looked at the spot in Nattie’s room and it almost looked like he was spraying because it’s on the wall and leaked down to the carpet. The only other thing I ca think of is that he is so scared of the dogs that when he has to go he won’t come down stairs…..
I think Ive known that he just was’t a good match for us, but giult has kept him here.
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