Cat Started Peeing in House :(

magicmushroom

Hi everyone,

So I'm looking for advice regarding my cat (just over a year old) who has recently started peeing around the house.

When I got Molly, I already had an adult cat who I thought would be fine with her but actually, they have never bonded and are regularly fighting and hissing at each other, they hate to be near each other.

I got Molly from a rescue centre when she was about 3 months old, she had been adopted but after 2 weeks the other family took her back to the rescue centre as their dog hadn't taken to her and they were scared he might attack her.
I was originally supposed to foster her for a couple of weeks but fell in love and decided to keep her.

At first she was very cuddly, always purring and just a generally sweet and lovely girl.
The past few months though she has changed, she now bites me when I try to pet her, she has no interest in cuddles or getting onto my lap.
She never hurts me, it's just like a warning I guess to leave her alone.

She has now started to pee around the house, sometimes right in front of me.
She has a particular spot at the end of the sofa (thankfully leather so I can clean it easily) which I have to clean every evening, she has also been on my handbag and the worst of all was just 10 minutes ago - she went ON MY LEG :eek:

I've given this a lot of thought over the past weeks and I think that the issue is my other cat. There's nothing I can really do to make things better for Molly, I can't keep them apart (small house) and I just don't know what to do, I feel like sitting down and crying, it is not acceptable to have a house smelling of cat pee, my worry is that she's gone in places I haven't seen.

Any ideas or tips guys?

I'm seriously thinking that she might be happier living somewhere else, to see her like this is so upsetting, I just want her to be her happy, purring self again

angelfire9

Are both cats neutered?
What gender is the older cat?
Have you changed litter recently?
Have both cats their own litter trays?

Don't panic yet let's see if we can help you first

Pumpkinseeds

Has she had a check up with the vet recently? I've heard that a lot of peeing outside the litter box can often be caused by urinary tract infections and stress. Or it could be something else health related, I'm just surmising really. We've taken in 2 extra adult cats in the past few months and we got a natural stress relieving medication called Zyklene from our vets for our older male cat who is very stressed out and edgy all the time since their arrival.

If you can, I'd take her to the vet and get her checked over to rule out any health issues and then work from there. I wish you all the best with it anyway:)

meoklmrk91

I would also be taking her to the vet to rule out a UTI, in cases where a cat starts to pee inside it is very often a UTI. I would rule this out first.

magicmushroom

Thanks for the advice guys, yes I'll take her to the vet.

Both cats are neutered and they dont use litter trays, they go outside (always have) and have access to the garden all day.

Both females, Molly is a year and a half and Cleo my other cat is 4.

The peeing is upsetting but my main concern is Molly's happiness, I hate to think that she's stressed every day!

bluecherry74

Definitely bring her to the vet to be on the safe side, but would you consider setting up a litter tray inside? It's possible that there's something putting her off going outside, such as a new bullying cat in the neighborhood. I have a problem with my neighbour's cat bullying my own cats and they can sometimes be reluctant to go out if they've had a spat.

Litter trays aren't that hard to keep clean and don't smell as bad as you'd think if you use a good litter (check out the cat litter debate thread a couple of pages back ).

Pumpkinseeds

magicmushroom wrote: »

Thanks for the advice guys, yes I'll take her to the vet.

Both cats are neutered and they dont use litter trays, they go outside (always have) and have access to the garden all day.

Both females, Molly is a year and a half and Cleo my other cat is 4.

The peeing is upsetting but my main concern is Molly's happiness, I hate to think that she's stressed every day!

I know how you feel, our latest arrival is a 3 year old female cat that we brought in 3 weeks ago tomorrow. Toby arrived during the summer and has been living indoors for a couple of months now, we had him at the vet on Monday with a UTI. He'd been acting strangely and was having litter box issues and I think her arrival was partly responsible for triggering it.

Felix was constantly growling and huffing and just generally really unhappy and edgy about the 2 of them being here and it's really stressful to see him so stressed. We got a Feliway diffuser and have him on the Zyklene too and it's making a big difference. It's a natural product so no risk of addiction and it takes the edge off things for him.

The Zyklene might work for your 2 in the short term to calm them both down enough to restore peace. The Feliway releases happy pheremones that humans can't smell and reassures cats that all is well. I buy it from Zooplus.UK, Neutrecare, and Viovet UK have them for 14 pounds each or 6 refills for 87 pounds, usually 125 for the 6. I often see it on sale here at 40 euro a refill:eek:

Heroditas

This thread was started at the perfect time. My wife and I are utterly fed up at the moment. We have endured quite a bit of indoor peeing in the last while and my runners were destroyed yesterday evening. One of them even peed on the cooker earlier this week.
We're sitting here this evening feeling very down because the whole downstairs of the house tonight stinks of cat pee and we can't find the source of it. What makes it worse is the fact that I think it's coming in from the side passage where they have their litter trays and it always seems to get bad depending on the prevailing wind and whether it's wet. Naturally, the wind is blowing in the wrong direction tonight and it's been raining for most of the day.

We're at our wits end now just don't know what to do. One of the cats is just peeing in the side passage against the side gate and doesn't seem to use the litter trays despite me cleaning them every day and regularly topping them up.

Oh what to do.....

Nody

Heroditas wrote: »

This thread was started at the perfect time. My wife and I are utterly fed up at the moment. We have endured quite a bit of indoor peeing in the last while and my runners were destroyed yesterday evening. One of them even peed on the cooker earlier this week.
We're sitting here this evening feeling very down because the whole downstairs of the house tonight stinks of cat pee and we can't find the source of it. What makes it worse is the fact that I think it's coming in from the side passage where they have their litter trays and it always seems to get bad depending on the prevailing wind and whether it's wet. Naturally, the wind is blowing in the wrong direction tonight and it's been raining for most of the day.

We're at our wits end now just don't know what to do. One of the cats is just peeing in the side passage against the side gate and doesn't seem to use the litter trays despite me cleaning them every day and regularly topping them up.

Oh what to do.....

Well for starters are you using a biological protein break down cleaner to remove the pee? If not you will clean it away for your nose but the cats will still smell the pee and start so see it as a place to pee.

Secondly what happened to trigger the change? Based on your information they sound like outdoor cats so have you seen any new cats around? There could very well be a new Tom roaming around outside which means they will go territorial (cats pee to get their own smell in an area to comfort themselves as they are afraid; if cats feel they already "own" an area they are not going to pee there because they are not afraid basically).

Heroditas

I use the likes of Wash and Get Off to clean the affected areas.
They're indoor cats but I reckon there's been a few extra neighbour cats hanging around recently and that might have raised the stress levels.
I think the side passage needs a really good scrubbing down and I probably need to fit some sort of draught excluder on the gate so the wind doesn't blow any "fragrances" in through the cat flap into the house.

Imported but

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

...we got a natural stress relieving medication called Zyklene from our vets for our older male cat who is very stressed out and edgy all the time since their arrival....

This is a great thread. Thanks everyone for the information.
Zyklene: how expensive is it and does it work? Feliway is so expensive. We have used a cat repellent in our cats' favourite spots and it seems to work, but it stinks.

Is there something which works if you spray it into the litter trays, to encourage the cats to use them? Based on our experiences our cats love the smell of clean washing :rolleyes:

miezekatze

Imported but wrote: »

This is a great thread. Thanks everyone for the information.
Zyklene: how expensive is it and does it work? Feliway is so expensive. We have used a cat repellent in our cats' favourite spots and it seems to work, but it stinks.

Is there something which works if you spray it into the litter trays, to encourage the cats to use them? Based on our experiences our cats love the smell of clean washing :rolleyes:

There's an American product called 'Cat Attract' which is supposed to be great, but I don't know how hard it is to get it here. I heard great things about it. You can get it as a litter or as an additive.

I use a Feliway plug-in for stressful situations, it's expensive but it does seem to work and it's a bit cheaper if you buy it online.

Heroditas

Imported but wrote: »

Is there something which works if you spray it into the litter trays, to encourage the cats to use them? Based on our experiences our cats love the smell of clean washing :rolleyes:

Sounds familiar. :rolleyes:

Pumpkinseeds

Imported but wrote: »

This is a great thread. Thanks everyone for the information.
Zyklene: how expensive is it and does it work? Feliway is so expensive. We have used a cat repellent in our cats' favourite spots and it seems to work, but it stinks.

Is there something which works if you spray it into the litter trays, to encourage the cats to use them? Based on our experiences our cats love the smell of clean washing :rolleyes:

Zylkene is cheaper on VetUk, 35 pounds for 100 pills. Cats under 8 kilos would only have 1 pill a day. They also sell them per pill so you can just try a few to see how it works. It's the 75mg pills for cats. Felix is 8 kilos so the vet prescribed 2 a day for him. I buy Feliway for 15 pounds on Zooplus.uk, Neutrecare do it cheaply too and sometimes Viovet have good offers. Buy it from abroad, it's extortionate over here.
I bought Fizzion from Ebay for the spraying problem. It kills the enzymes in their pee, plus it's good for vomit etc and can be used on soft furnishing. Wasn't expensive either.

Alun

I get my Zylkene (and Feliway) from VetUK, much cheaper than here.

magicmushroom

Thank you all for the replies so far, you're all very helpful and lovely.

I've just bought a kennel that I'm picking up tomorrow - I think I'm going to keep my eldest cat outside during the day with Molly inside with a litter tray and see if that helps, maybe keeping them apart when I'm not home will relieve Molly's stress.

I've been feeding 2 strays in my back garden recently and now I'm wondering if this is contributing, I think I'll feed her out the front for a while to see if this helps.

I'm also going to order the calming thing that you plug in.

Thanks again guys, I'll keep you all updated!

Pumpkinseeds

Lovely cat, you're probably right about keeping them apart for a bit while you're out. The strays are definitely a part of it. We've been feeding a tabby tom for the past week, he used to sneak in and help himself in the kitchen. He comes twice a day and sits on the oil tank waiting for us to see him, eats and then goes off.

He's always ravenous but looks in great shape so not sure what his story is, Felix is not happy at all about it and we can't keep puss, 4 has to be our limit. So we'll be looking for a home for him if he needs one. Felix was virtually living out the back guarding the house from him and getting very anxious and agitated but things are calmer now with the zylkene, I could use a bit of the human version of happy pills at this stage:D

Heroditas

Managed to fix the smell problem. It was coming into the house through the air vents in the Hallandale dining room from the side passage! Closed the vent in the dining room and stuck an air freshener in the hall one and we now have a clean smelling house again!

Unfortunately it looks like our male cats has yet another UTI. He's been peeing little claret pools on the hard cold surfaces like the tiled floor so it'll be off to the vet with him tomorrow. Not good because he was only there a month ago with the same thing.

Pumpkinseeds

Heroditas wrote: »

Managed to fix the smell problem. It was coming into the house through the air vents in the Hallandale dining room from the side passage! Closed the vent in the dining room and stuck an air freshener in the hall one and we now have a clean smelling house again!

Unfortunately it looks like our male cats has yet another UTI. He's been peeing little claret pools on the hard cold surfaces like the tiled floor so it'll be off to the vet with him tomorrow. Not good because he was only there a month ago with the same thing.

Poor little guy, but he'll feel a lot better when it's treated. How is he at drinking water. Toby drinks lots of it, but I read somewhere that if a cat isn't a big drinker you could try adding the juice from a can of tuna in spring water into their water bowl, like wise with chicken stock.

Heroditas

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

Poor little guy, but he'll feel a lot better when it's treated. How is he at drinking water. Toby drinks lots of it, but I read somewhere that if a cat isn't a big drinker you could try adding the juice from a can of tuna in spring water into their water bowl, like wise with chicken stock.

I can only assume he's alright because the bowls get emptied fairly regularly. However, it could be the other two who drink the water as well.
Strangely enough, I've mopped up his pee a couple of times since this afternoon and it seems to have been clear. Might just keep an eye on him and the vet may not be necessary yet.
I also found some "Calm Ease" (or something like that) in the press. Might try giving that to him and see if it helps long term.

Pumpkinseeds

It can be tricky alright, when we first saw it in Toby there was blood when he was spraying, before he was neutered, this time though there wasn't any blood in his urine and I was checking the litter tray when he peed, just to be sure. I'm half tempted to try the Feliway designed for Cystitis but I'm not sure it would be much different to the normal Feliway plug in that we use already.

lubie76

Both my males had reoccurring UTI's so my vet told me to take them off the dry food altogether even though I was using a high quality grain free dry food...no problems anymore. They just weren't getting enough water into them.

They now get aniconda or Bozita and a piece of raw chicken or rabbit with bone everyday- they never leave our garden for fear they will miss out on their raw food.

Heroditas

He's being kept in overnight by the vet. They want a urine sample and he's refusing to go. Typical :rolleye:

They want to see if there's crystals in his litter. If there are, it'll be a change of diet (again) for him.

anniehoo

Heroditas wrote: »

He's being kept in overnight by the vet. They want a urine sample and he's refusing to go. Typical :rolleye:

They want to see if there's crystals in his litter. If there are, it'll be a change of diet (again) for him.

It's a pain I know, but both you and your vet have done the right thing. I was going to post this yesterday but held off to see what you would do. Urethral obstructions in male cats are much more problematic (and blockages can be fatal). Even if a cat drinks lots of water, a high Magnesium diet, or even a normal one that your cat can't process can be problematic as it can lead to the formation of a Urolith and may initially just be treated as a normal UTI (urinary tract infection caused by bacteria for example).

You might not think it now, but it is definitely a good thing if you have found this out now out (crystal stage) and it hasn't lead to a full on Urolith.

It's going to be even more difficult for you as you have a multi cat household unfortunately, with different diets. Let us know how you get on

Pumpkinseeds

Heroditas wrote: »

He's being kept in overnight by the vet. They want a urine sample and he's refusing to go. Typical :rolleye:

They want to see if there's crystals in his litter. If there are, it'll be a change of diet (again) for him.

Good luck with it. We've to keep an eye on Toby and go in to our vet for some kind of special litter to get a urine sample if he has another flare up. Hopefully your chap will get sorted out and be feeling well soon.

Heroditas

Anyway, he was put back on the meds for a week, he had some crystals in the urine so his diet has been overhauled.
We thought the peeing was behind us but I found some urine on the cooker yesterday and again today. Was puzzled because it reappeared after I cleaned it up. It was like one of those horror films where the penny drops with the main character (see the scene in Aliens when they realise the aliens are overhead in the air vents - that was me earlier).
Up I went with a torch and it appears he's been peeing on top of the kitchen units. Bleugh!
Scrubbed them down, put a water/eucalyptus mixture in some bowls up there and liberally sprayed some Get Off up there.
We'll see if that works.

Pumpkinseeds

Ahh no, I hope he's feeling better soon. If it's any consolation, since we've been bringing Poppy outdoors over the past few days the boys are piddling everywhere in the gardens. Yesterday Felix peed on the wheelie bin lid then tried to bury the wee Jazzy dug a hole in the woodchips in the front garden while we were out there watching Poppy, then squatted for a pee, never done that before.

Half an hour ago I was playing in the back garden with Toby and he peed on the sun parasol that we'd left on the ground to be put in the shed for Winter, oh, and Felix peed on a lump of wood he pulled off a plant box this afternoon and then tried to bury it with a solid concrete path:D