My one male cat, Levi, has a bad habit!

[tricollie4me]

We have three kitties -- two females and our male orange & white, Levi. He's about seven months old and healthy. He was neutered prior to our adopting him two months ago. In the last few weeks, he's begun peeing (not spraying) on the cat beds and (we think) on my area rugs in the living room. The one place he seems to avoid peeing is in the cat bed that's on top of our dog crate.

I don't know what to do. I've washed everything, I bought Feliway (not cheap!) and sprayed that on the kitty beds and in the room/areas he seems to pee, with no change in Levi's habits. Within a day's time, he's peed on the freshly washed, Feliway-treated beds, no matter where I put them (I've changed locations a couple of times to see if he's trying to mark a location as "his" but it doesn't seem to matter where I put the beds, he'll eventually pee in them -- in our presence, when we're not there, he's clearly not modest!).

What's Levi trying to tell me? Does he need to be checked for a UTI, or is this behavioral in nature? Why doesn't the Feliway help? My hubby thinks that Levi has become accustomed to using the other two cat beds (as I mentioned, he doesn't ever pee in the one atop the dog crate -- which all the cats take turns sleeping in) as a litter box, but this seems odd to me -- he uses the litter boxes we do have just fine (we've seen him use them, he doesn't have "litter box issues."). I absolutely adore Levi (in all other ways he's the perfect cat) so I need to get this problem corrected.

Help, anyone?

[moosmom]

Definitely get him to the vet to rule out a UTI. That's what it sounds like to me, a UTI. If you want to get out the pee smell, go and get Nature's Miracle and pour it directly on the stain before throwing it in the wash.

Good luck and let us know how you make out.

[catmandu]

SDALY MORE CATS,ARE PTS,OVER THAT ISSUE,THAN EVEN OLD AGE.
A UTI EXAM,HOEFULLY,WILL DTERMINE,WHETHER THIS,IS A MEDICAL ISSUE,OR A BEHAVIOR ONE.
GOOD LUCK,WITH LEVI,THE KITTEN.

[CalliesMom]

I would take him to a vet just to rule out a UTI. How often do you clean their cat litter? If it is behavioral, you might want to put him on medication...but ask the vet, as there may be some alternatives.

[momcat]

This sounds like a question for your vet, just to be sure there's no medical cause or problem going on here. Is Levi eating, drinking and playing as usual? Talk to your vet and please let us know how Levi is doing?

[catnapper]

Have you changed ANYTHING at all lately? Think hard. He might be voicing his opinion through peeing.

Allen was peeing on beds, pillows, clothes, blankets... you name it for the past two weeks. We couldn't figure out WHY. Then it hit my husband one night earlier this week -- we had shut the door to the third floor when my son went off to college. My sons bedroom was/is Allen's bedroom too. He was upset that we shut him out of his room. We opened it back up to him and not one incident since.

[Shady]

I'd definitely get Levi to the vet's if only to rule out a medical problem.

I think I'd remove the beds completely for a couple of days and see what he does about that.

[tricollie4me]

Thanks for the feedback. I called the vet first thing this morning and we are doing our best to obtain a urine sample here at home; if we can't, we'll bring him in to have a sample collected there. The vet tech said that 9 out of 10 times that a cat begins to suddenly pee in places they haven't before is due to a UTI -- that seems high to me but who knows...

The only change at home is some "freshener" we bought at the pet store to sprinkle on/in their cat litter to help control odor (we do clean their litter boxes daily but their boxes are in the basement rec room where the kids often play video games, etc., we thought it would be nice to keep things smelling good 24/7 if we could!). We stopped using the freshening powder several days ago with the notion Levi didn't like it and was letting us know, but he's continued to pee upstairs on the kitty beds anyway. It's possible there's residue of the freshening powder (it's like baking soda to sprinkle in their litter box, but it smells good (at least to people -- probaby not to my cats, though, huh?) left over in their boxes, however, so I could certainly dump everything out and wash up their boxes, starting all over again.

We'll get to the bottom of things! Most important is a happy, healthy cat -- I love my Levi!



Edited to add: I've taken the beds away to wash them and Levi doesn't pee on anything! It seems bed-related, at least to me, but I just don't know for sure I wish I could read their cute little feline minds!

Thanks, everyone.

[catnapper]

Poor Levi... sounds like the freshener could be a plausible culprit. Honestly, do try to dump the litter. I HATE doing that because it feels so wasteful to me, but sometimes ya gotta do what you've gotta do. Try finding one of those enzyme cleaners to wash the beds in -- Moosmom told me of one the other day.... Donna.... yoohoo, what was that stuff? The enzyme cleaner will neutralize the urine in it. Even though we wash the beds, and WE no longer smell the pee, the cats do and will continue to pee where they peed before because they can still smell it. Cat pee is a mysterious thing.... did you know the only natural substance to stain or penetrate the coating on Formica type surfaces is cat urine? (ahhhh the things I know from work! )