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View Full Version : Please help us to help our Tooty bear!



jomama55358
08-17-2005, 02:51 PM
Hello again.
We have a "situation" going on.
Brutus is our 3rd oldest of our 11 cats.
He was Nuetered & front declawed when he was about 6 mos. old & he is now 5 yrs old.
He is our most outgoing but also our moodiest & bitchiest cat.
He is the mascot of the house & he pretty much sets the mood of the katz.
About 1 yr ago, when there was only 5 cats in the main house, but at the same time there was a litter of 8 stray kittens secured in our spare bedroom, we noticed that a tupperware that my wife used to hold spare change next to our kitchen sink- was soaked with cat urine.
There was alot of different things going on in the house at the time, between raising & adopting out kittens, 2 very sick cats, & plus we started trapping the local strays in live traps to get them sterilized. The coins were washed off & deposited. The tupperware was removed.
Since then, 6 more katz have come to live with us, making a total of 11 katz.
Also, on day last fall, was sitting on the couch getting my workboots on, & Brutus hopped up onto a trunk that we had a boxfan sitting on. The fan was on & pointed at me.
I watched in amazement as brutus turned his butt to the fan, cocked up his tail & peeeeeeeeeeeed into the fan!!:confused: :confused:
I had to get to work, so I just cleaned up the area & went to work after relaying the incident to my wife.
About 2 months ago, my wife noticed that a cat had been urinating ON OUR KITCHEN STOVE!!! This stove is directly next to the sink where the soiled tupperware had been sitting.
Obviously, this cannot continue.
Although we didn't SEE who peed on the stove, we pretty much knew it was Brutus. We tried keeping an eye on him when he was in the area.
It happened again & again, ususally in the middle of the night, not every night-sometimes a week or two between peeings, but it did continue.
Needing proof on who the culprit was, we went & bought a camera that hooked to our vcr.
Last night we got the proof. It is Brutus.
It's very hard sometimes to keep a clean house with 11 cats, but we do try.
This behavior cannot continue.
Over the past two months, after doing some research on the internet, we have added 3 more litterboxes, giving us a total of 8 litterboxes in the house. We also took brutus to the vet to be checked for urinary tract infection. The vet said he did not have uti, but there was a high bacteria count in his urine. He gave us two different batches of antibiotics to help that.
All this leads up to having him on tape last night, peeing on our kitchen stove.:( :(
Any Ideas, Katlovers?
We adore Brutus.
He is soooooooo full of personality.
He is also the least accepting of new katz when they arrive. He hisses & swats at them & he walks around "bitching".
When weather permits, we like to take up to six of our katz outside-under our strict supervision.
As I said earlier, we also feed the local strays in our garage.
The absolute first time I ever saw Brutus pee anywhere other than in a litterbox was outside, on the corner of our house, where the strays like to rub against, (& maybe mark their territory). this was about 2 full years ago that he started peeing outside.
We're pretty sure it's because we simply have too many katz.
We've committed to not take anymore in.
That doesn't change the task at hand.
We believe that this behavior may become "contagious".
We're not even entirely sure that Brutus is the only culprit.
We will keep the camera rolling.
We're pretty sure that the stove & the fan are probably not the only places being soiled.
We don't want to lose our tooty bear.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

barncat
08-17-2005, 08:32 PM
I have a multipet household and one of my male cats (all are "fixed") is very territorial and will mark territory when feeling the need to show who is boss. For me, it has taken dividing the household into two sections... one where he and those cats he does not have dominance issuses with live and another section where the other cats that "bother" him live. This works mostly because the house has what was once a "mother-in-law" apartment attached which I use for my studio area. He still sometimes will get upset and mark if there are stray animals around that he can see. Interaction between the households is supervised and eventually I hope to unite them but I expect it to take time. I have united households before but I was able to be home more then....

One vet I knew swore that anytime there were more than 7 cats in a household, someone would develop pee-problems, while I have not found that to be true, some cats have a lower tolerance toward changes in the colony.

Can you give Brutus an area that is less crowded? I know some of the other people on PT have used stress-lowering scents and meds... those might help. It sounds like it is might be the outside cats that are triggering the marking. Can you prevent him from seeing them? Can you move their feeding area away from tyhe house so he feels less threatened?

Having a behaviorist evaluate the situation and make suggestions might be good. It is also possible the problem may clear up with the added litterpans and the treatment for the urinary problem....

Good luck. I hope you won't have to find a lower stress home for your Brutus. Good luck!

jomama55358
08-18-2005, 12:44 AM
Thank you for the reply, Barncat.
My wife & I have been talking it over & we have decided to try keeping Brutus is the spare bedroom. It has two windows & we are going to come up with some kind of a screen door. In my own personal opinion, this MIGHT give him what he's wanted all along-privacy.
We both feel bad because even though we knew he wasn't tolerant of new katz, we just kept bringing them in.
EVERYTHING you said fits.
Our house is quite small, about the size of a double wide trailer.
11 katz. That's alot of territorial furbabies in a small space.
We will try to get this "segregation" instituted this weekend.
Thanks for the advice & good wishes.