Severe Spraying/Peeing

PetOfTheDay was the first website I became a happy member of (although at the time I was quite young, I'm embarrassed of how I was now.) Today I come back hoping for some help which I desperately need. First and foremost, I ask that no rude remarks be made at my expense concerning how I have done this so far. I am here for help so that I can keep an amazing cat named Lola who I first met on my first day of volunteer work for a local cat shelter. I will provide a bit of background on her in case any of it helps.

She is about a year and a half and I came across her while she was nursing her litter of four. Often she would not eat and sat in her litterbox with little interest in much else. I took to taking her around the store to explore a bit, and she became much more brighter and curious and slowly recovered from what I considered depression. Lola became a foster cat, after which she inevitably became a cat my family did not want to part with. She has taken to spraying and peeing in various places of the house. I have noted that it is often a place my dad is (his side of the bed, his leather chair, underneath his computer space...) She does not seem to understand the concept of "No" even when holding the scruff of her neck to the pee spot and saying it firmly.

There are two litter boxes, both of which are cleaned, though I am making more efforts to work on.

There is a male cat named Cubby who is about 12 years old who has been my baby for years now. I am aware of the circumstances that can occur with new cats, especially male/female. Both are fixed. Cubby is completely indifferent and is not bothered by Lola, and she has managed to become the same with him. I am not convinced she is doing this over him.

Lola is indoor. Every few days or so I take her outback and watch her while she explores. She was a stray cat before we took her in from the shelter, and she does have feral tendencies, most being very slight (aggressive love, skittish behavior) excepting the peeing and spraying.

My family is at their wits end. The only solution my supervisor offered was to return Lola, which I am staunchly against. It will break my heart if my parents force me to take her back. I need help and I am begging the members of POTD to give it to me.

~Zeki

P.S. I know there may be other topics like this out there, but I do believe each case is a little different for each cat.

All I can think of is retraining. Restrict her to a small area - start with a crate if you have one, a bathroom if you don't. A small area and a litter box, food bowl and water dish.

After 3 or 4 days of this, allow her a larger area, but still not the full house. See if she maintains using the box.

Oh, and take a urine sample in for testing (most vets allow just the sample if they have seen the cat recently) for a urinary tract infection.

Good luck!

When I have brought new cats home - two rescues, one from the Humane Society - I do keep them in one room to begin with, for at least a week.

While she is in there, get some Cat Attract litter to encourage her to use the box. She may still have some feral habits.

The first thing I think of when this happens is a urinary infection. If you can't get a urine sample, take her to a vet. Hopefully the shelter has a vet that is low or not cost.

Please keep us updated on sweet Lola. Bless you for adopting her!:):love:

Make sure you clean every spot she has sprayed with something like "Nature's Miracle" - an enzymatic cleaner that will get not only what we smell, but the thing we cannot smell that mark a spot as "good pee spot here!"

No cat will understand "no" in connection with a wet spot.

Cleaning those spots well, and a vet check in case it's something medical are both important first steps!

Sigh... I had written a long reply and it logged me out before I finished it and I lost everything I wrote.

In a nutshell, thanks to all three of you :love: I am headed out now to look for some Cat Attract litter and anything else that might help. I'll nab a urine sample from her and take her to the vet in the coming days as well, and we will keep her secluded in the bathroom for a few days. Lola was kept away from Cubby for the first several days as well, but she has never shown a particular interest in being social with other cats, although Cubby will flit right by her and nudge her. I think she's catching on ;)

As for saying "no", I guess it's just automatic. If a cat is on the table with our food it comes out, same as if our dog is gobbling up my Subway sandwich I made the mistake of leaving on a low table :rolleyes: We clean up with Pinesol and other products usually, and have taken to using something called "SCOE 10x" recently. We ordered a black light with it too, to make it easier to catch the spots we can't immediately find.

Thanks again everyone! I'll keep you updated and I'll get a picture of her up here soon.

~Zeki

I'm sorry to hear this and I hope that you'll be able to find a solution to this problem soon. You can buy cat attract litter at Petsmart or online. You may also want to buy some Feliway plugins or spray. Here's an excellent website that talks about litter box problems and how to solve them:http://www.catinfo.org/?link=litterbox. Good luck.:)

IF you come back and say that you've tried all the suggestions and that Lola checks out ok at the vet's, then there is one last thing you can try: medication. I know, I hated the thought of it, too. I have a pee cat who was so destructive that he ruined an entire living room suite and a dining room server. My vet suggested trying a medication that's given to dogs to treat aggression and separation anxiety but he said that it's been given to cats who spray and it has seen great success. At that point I was ready to try anything having tried all the things that have been suggested to you w/o success.

Specs was a rescue and my only other alternative was to have him PTS and I was not about to do that. The name of the med is Clomicalm. You need a vet to prescribe it and, if your vet hasn't heard of it or is stubborn about prescribing a dog med for a cat, tell him/her that I have been giving it to my pee cat/s for approximately 6 years now w/NO side effects whatsoever. They go in for their checkups, blood work, etc. (Note that I've said pee catS, plural, b/c Specs started a pee war and it was awful! So now I have two more cats on Clomicalm.) I wouldn't do anything that would endanger the lives of my cats, so I give it to them w/o reservation. There are other meds that you can try but this has worked best for me.

I do hope, though, that you don't have to go this route b/c it's important that you administer the med every day and don't miss a dose. They get only 5 mg. at bedtime. It doesn't make them drowsy, etc.; it just keeps them calm, not agitated, so that they don't spray. They still play normally, eat, use the litter box w/no problem.

Please update us and let us know how it's going. This can be the most frustrating problem and your cat doesn't want to behave this way either. :love:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zekiirah

As for saying "no", I guess it's just automatic. If a cat is on the table with our food it comes out, same as if our dog is gobbling up my Subway sandwich I made the mistake of leaving on a low table :rolleyes:
~Zeki

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ROFL, don't they just know the minute we "forget" and leave something in reach?! Of course, they are usually sitting RIGHT THERE, just waiting for us to drop it, leave it, or otherwise stop concentrating. :D

Cleaners: I'm not sure about Pinesol, but you want something with NO AMMONIA in it. They are drawn by the smell of ammonia to pee in a set place. This is why the enzymatic cleaner Karen mentioned is important - you need a cleaner with enzymes that break down the ammonia and leave no trace of it.

Ok - this won't work if you have a dog, but for cats only, try putting little food bowls around everywhere with dry food in it. Cats don't pee where they eat. The best part is, in a few days the food goes stale, so they don't really want to eat it, but it is food so they don't want to pee there either.

Hope that helps.

Hello all! My apologies for not getting back to anyone sooner - I read through every post and was and still am very grateful for the advice given.

So far, I've retrained Lola in our bathroom and used the Cat Attract litter. She's actually made the bathroom her home now, she rarely ventures outside of it. We've recently taken to using a paw-lick remedy that is supposed to calm her down. It seems to work, but not until she's walked and jumped around the house awkwardly, scattered some litter onto the dab on her paw, and then finally decides she just has to lick it off. I don't think she's peed anywhere new for the past couple of weeks since the re-training.

We still need to find all of the old pee spots :p Not something I'm looking forward to...

And catland! That's a very interesting suggestion, I will try that as well! Any kind of preventative measure to keep her on the right track longer is great for us.

Thanks again to everyone!

~Zeki

Zeki,

Good job!! Thank you for not giving up!!

You got some great advice here. All I can say is WAY TO GO!!!

Yaay! Thank you for working with her. I guess she needed her own "room". ;):D

I have owned cats for years and have worked with this problem a lot.
over and over when a cat starts this out of the box peeing it is because they do not like the cat box,or where the box is located or they are stressed out by not being able to get up high above or be able to position themselves in the house where they otherwise feel safe.
CAT BOX: they may not like the conditon: dirty, or the litter smell or dust, or they need one for Pee one for Poo, or they do not like the design--the lid or hood. TRY: taking the hood off, this helps be able to clean it more often. thinking about the type of litter used.
Where the box is located: is it somewhere they feel ambushed to go in or to come out? does the other cat bother her "in there" is the location noisy or so out of the way she feels bothered about getting to it? does she have to get past the other cat to get there or get past someone who always gives too much attention to her?
Safe place cats need to be able to get up high for their feeling of wellbeing. does she have a cat tree or a place to jump up and look down? or a place she can hide away from everyone or also get away from other cat and also most important if not up high can she see people or things comming?
Misc Cats also tend to like to pee on dirty clothes piled on the floor. putting clothes into a "hamper" solves this.
PunnishmentCats do not understand the nose in pee and spanking or loud no etc--better_ get a catbox, lid off, in new place and randomly place her in it at calm times. she may get rite out, but keep bringing her there. cats love the ease of getting in and out and cannot resist loose dirt.
PS my own favorite is called a Jump down box it is deep enough to use lid off or jump down. also at home fixit stores get a storage type of box and use that the edges are high.

Just a note on the best way to find cat urine or spray areas is with a Ultraviolet LED ( blacklight) flashlight. This is the same flashlight you see them using on all CSI type shows. They can be found online for a reasonable price. I have 2 that I paid $19 for. Just do a google search for "ultraviolet led flashlight for finding pet cat stains" You will find them anywhere from $10 to $1000. They work on all cat stains. After recieving mine, which were bought for a different reason, I found spray marks on walls left behind by a cat that went to the Bridge over a year ago.