Pee on My Bed, and I'll Buy You a Castle

[queerbychoice]

My cat, Stardust, who is two and a half years old and had never once in her entire life peed anywhere other than in her litter box until that vet appointment July 30th scared her out of her wits and caused her to pee in my car, has since taken to peeing everywhere other than her litter box. She first did it (other than for the vet appointment itself) on August 13th, and hasn't stopped since. She pees on my carpet, she pees on my bed, she pees anywhere and everywhere other than her litter box.

I've already taken her back to the vet to check for any medical problems that might cause this. She obligingly did not pee in my car for this second vet visit, and she obligingly did pee on command for the urinalysis test. But the urinalysis results showed that there's nothing wrong with her. She has no bacteria in her urine, no crystals in her urine, no sign whatsoever of the slightest medical problem. She's merely, shall we say, Incontinent by Choice.

Her kitty litter and her food were both the same brands she's had for ages, and her litter box was plenty clean. The vet wanted to know what stresses she might be feeling that could drive her to "express herself" in this way. I came up with nothing at all other than boredom. It would make a great deal more sense if she started behaving this way after being moved to a new household, having to share her home with Susan's two dogs and two tanks of fish and a temporary hamster. That's the sort of situation that often leads cats to behave this way. But I haven't moved yet! Stardust hasn't been anywhere near the dogs in something like six months. She's living in the exact same place she's lived since she was eight weeks old. Nothing has happened that should have upset her in any way, unless it's the fact that I leave her alone for eight hours a day on weekdays and then I leave her alone all weekend too.

It was unclear what I could do to fix this, since she already had ten million toys (not that she seemed to take much interest in any of them, most of the time). Bringing her with me to Susan's house every weekend would mean subjecting her to hour-long car rides, dogs, and regular uprootings from her territory, while running a high risk that she might pee in my car again, or pee all over Susan's duplex. And Susan can't easily come here for the weekend instead, because of her dogs. But we certainly didn't want to stop seeing each other because of our pets! So I tried all the standard approaches, like pouring cat pee enzyme cleaners all over everything and replacing her kitty litter with Cat Attract litter. Stardust was distinctly unimpressed. She showed no attraction whatsoever to the Cat Attract litter, and continued peeing anywhere and everywhere other than the litter box.

The vet mentioned that indoor-only cats seem to do this more than indoor-outdoor cats, and that turning them into indoor-outdoor cats usually solves the problem. But I'd have to get her some extra vaccinations to make her an indoor-outdoor cat, and then she'd have the vastly shorter life expectancy of an indoor-outdoor cat - and anyway, she's been indoor-only for so much of her life that she's now utterly terrified of the outdoors. If I take her outside, she just huddles up next to the door and mews plaintively at me until I let her back in.

My mother said that various pet-training shows she watches on TV have resolved the behavior problems of indoor-only cats by presenting the cats with elaborate cat trees to alleviate their boredom. So an elaborate cat tree is what Stardust now has. I found a huge cat tree unusually cheap ($83) on eBay, which arrived today, and I spent this evening assembling it. I also tied a bunch of cat toys (purchased separately, bot from eBay) to it with twine. It's supposed to go all the way to the ceiling, but currently it doesn't because there are some minor issues with incorrect screw sizes at the very top of the tree. For the most part, though, it's functional. Stardust is not quite sure yet what to make of it. She's a great big fluffy 12-pound cat, and she seems not very confident that all levels of the cat tree can hold her weight, so she's avoiding the higher levels of it so far.

I hope she decides she likes it. I hope (rather desperately) she loves it so much that she goes back to being Litter-Trained by Choice instead of Incontinent by Choice. But if nothing else, I guess this purchase has at least made it now abundantly clear that I'm not a big follower of B. F. Skinner. With this sort of precedent, it's a wonder if you people don't all show up at my door tomorrow, invite yourselves in, and pee on my bed, just to see what expensive gifts I might buy you if you did.

Comments

[saxifrage.livejournal.com]

Have you tried feliway? I highly recommend it. It is a system that disperses cat pheromone in your house, to make your cat feel more comfortable. When cats become incontinent because of stress rather than health, feliway can work quite well--a stressed cat will mark to make the house smell more cat-y, but the feliway makes the house smell of cat without the cat needing to pee on everything, and therefore a stressed cat will be calmer and less likely to mark with the feliway in use. I know I probably sound like I swallowed a commercial but I only mention this because I know it works--we ended up rehoming one of our cats because she was very stressed by our dogs, but the feliway did stop her from marking all over our house--she was still stressed by the dogs, but she no longer peed outside the litterbox--we just decided to place her in a cat-only house because we thought she'd be happier. I mean I can't say for sure it would work with your cat, but it does sound like it was a stressful event that started her peeing all over the place, and often when a stressed cat becomes incontinent it's actually marking rather than true incontinence, and the feliway will stop cats from marking. And the feliway does not make your house smell bad--unlike cat pee, it's a smell that only the cat can smell. In any case, sorry to sound like a commercial, but we were at our wit's end with our cat peeing all over everything--I know how frustrating that can be--and the feliway completely stopped her from doing that within about 24 hours. I hope the cat tree helps, but if it doesn't, you might want to consider the feliway. Here's a link to it on amazon in case you want to check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/Farnam-Electric-48-Milliliters-Imitation-Pheromone/dp/B000FH708I/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1221720675&sr=8-2

Hope that helps, and *hugs*

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I looked for that at PetSmart, and couldn't find it. I will buy it if I see it, or possibly order it online. I really don't think she's marking, though; I think she's genuinely peeing. She pees large amounts, never pees in the litter box at all (except when I shut her in the bathroom for enough hours that she has no access to any fabric to pee on), and was spayed at such a young age - eight weeks - that I doubt whether she ever developed any marking instinct.

Anything's worth a try though, at this point.

[saxifrage.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, that sounds exactly like what HIlda did until we got the feliway--she wanted to pee on any fabric thing she could find, never in the litterbox, and the feliway did help immensely. I've actually just ordered another feliway for our current cat, Lili--she got pretty stressed out when we were playing host to our hurricane evacuees and their four very rambunctious dogs--Lili, fortunately, has not been marking, but I figured I'd get it in the hopes of calming her down, just to head things off before she might start marking.

[hansel25.livejournal.com]

Whenever I'm back in Singapore, I always disallow my cat to enter my room because she sheds a lot. I can't sleep if I keep breathing in her fur. But every time when she manages to sneak into the bed, she'll pee on my bed or on my books. (I think she sees me reading a lot.) I swear cats are the most vengeful pets.

Have you done anything to incur her wrath lately?

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Only taking her to the vet and leaving her home alone.

[orangebeaver.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Cool cat tree. I hope she starts going in the litterbox again. You might have to follow her around.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

http://www.harman.me.uk/gallery/v/edward/cats/tower/IMGP3451.JPG.html

Vega and Mira say "hi". (Or maybe "high").

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Hi!

[novalis.livejournal.com]

When my cat started peeing near/on our bed (and in front of our door, and ...), we moved her food to the exact spot where she had last peed (after cleaning it, of course). The theory: she won't pee where she eats. After a month or so, we moved it away. It worked pretty well, although she has the occasional relapse if we are foolish enough to let our blanket trail on the floor.

We also tried Feliway, which seems to have somewhat helped.

I've also heard the recommendation of getting a second cat box and putting it somewhere else.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

My cat has such atrociously bad hygiene that it's hard to imagine her being at all hesitant to pee directly in her food dish. Also, she knocks her food out of her dish so much that it would create quite a mess wherever I put it. There's usually more food next to her dish than inside her dish. And she pees so many different places that it would be hard to keep up.

I may try getting a second cat box. The vet also suggested that she might want a larger cat box; apparently cat boxes are supposed to be one and a half times the length of the cat, and my cat is kind of a large cat, so I'm not sure the litter box is quite as big as that recommendation calls for.

[placenta.livejournal.com]

take the time to notice the times of day that she does this (whether it's morning, evening, or any random time at all). you should also try to note what you're doing and/or where you are when this happens. i think that would start to help pinpoint any stress reason for it.
hopefully you'll figure something out before the big move (which, i'm sure, will most likely be an extremely stressful time for her).


ps. that photo made me giggle immensely; i love kitties and especially fat, fluffy ones! she's super adorable! <3333

[cantstopthedawn.livejournal.com]

I third the recommendation for Feliway and second the one for another/bigger litter box. She's a really large fluffy cat. Some people use underbed storage boxes for litter pans for their large fluffy cats.

Is her current box covered? If it's covered and small, she may think it's secretly the Evil Cat Carrier Of Death, and not want to go in it at all. Try taking off the cover if it has one.

Also, that cat tree is a total steal! Does the seller have more?

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

The seller has two of them for sale right now, but bidding ends in 2 minutes. The seller's name is bke2bke and the cat tree is described as "EURO 106"Cat Condo,Tree,House,Furniture,Tower,Scratcher."

Stardust's litter box was covered, but I removed the cover a week or so ago, to try to get her to stop doing this. She hasn't stopped so far.

[belenen.livejournal.com]

With this sort of precedent, it's a wonder if you people don't all show up at my door tomorrow, invite yourselves in, and pee on my bed, just to see what expensive gifts I might buy you if you did.

HAHAHA *gigglefit* I hope it works!