PLEASE help, desperate to stop this problem

My cat is around 5 years old, a male. He's been my best buddy for over 4 years and it just the greatest little guy you could want. the vet estimated him at 8-9 months when I got him adn had him neutured, etc. I got him right as I graduated college, adopted him 4.5 years ago.

this is goign to be long, so please hang in there. right from the start he had a problem with lifting his butt out of his box and finishing his pee outside the box. I found small ways to combat this early on without knowing much about it. after 2 years in an apartment I moved back home with my mom to pay off debt and put money away. the problem persisted for the most part. then 12 months ago one day I woke up and he was crying in pain and hadn't peed in 24 hrs. I took him in and sure enough he was blocked up. I had taken him to a vet earlier that summer to see if he was sick and they said nothing about the crystals that were in his urine, they totally screwed up.

after 3 overnite stays for blockages, i conceded to the surgery where they open up the pathway to stop the blockages. he's also been on the right uninary food both wet and dry since the first blockage. the surgery appeared to be well worth the money for awhile, he was totally using his box with no problems everything was great. then the infections started. every couple months he'd get one, pee on everythign to let me know he was sick, and go on antibiotics to clear it up.

furthermore..my mom is an acupunturist/herbalists, etc. she's been working with him since day one of the urinary problems and things always seem to help. This latest round of infection she put him on some strong herbal supplements and flower essences on the ears, etc. now we have him to the point where his urine is 100% scent free, she's cleaned the bateria out of him to that point. I'm serious, you wouldn't even know he peed if you didn't see it. he eats a scoop of wet food with natural supplements in it with alot of water mixed in twice a day and his normal ration of dry food. she felt this last time he actually had a staph infection going..

after this latest round of trouble he hasnt' gone back to the box like normal, he's not peeing on anything away from his box because he's not physically sick, but he persists on starting to pee in the box and the lifting his butt and spraying all around the box.

My fiance and i bought a house we are moving into next week, and we are expecting a baby this coming March. The sheer amount of time and effort that I have put into this problem, especially in the last year has just totally exhausted me, and I just don't see how I'm going to do this and have a wife, newborn, and 6 year old step son to take care of,too.

He can stay at my mom's until Sept 9th, although I think me leavign will make it worse, he's so attatched to me I cannot describe it. My mom feels he's picking up my stress from all that is going on. I'm pulling my hair out lately with taking on a large mortgage, a baby, a step son, and a soon to be wife at 27 years old. I've heard of cats doing this before, but there isn't much i can do about it. If we can't get this under control finally by that date, he may have to go away, and just the thought of that brings tears to my eyes. But I know in my heart I cannot have a cat in my new house that pees on stuff with a new born, my fiance will lose it.

Ok, so things I've done to exhaustion:

Vet treatments including the surgery. different types of litter boxes(just bought a high sided one the other day, that's the latest), fine grit unscented litter which he seems to like best, the special food, filtered water,all my mom's natural treatments which seem to be getting him very healthy, you name it.

things i'm seeing on here I haven't tried yet is that plug in that puts a scent in the room and what not. basically haven't tried anything man made/chemical yet..

its been 4 years of effort and he just won't seem to shape up and until now it was maddening but manageable. the changes in my life now mean I just can't do it anymore, it won't be possible, i have one more shot to fix this now or he's gonna have to go..

please help..

Well, IMO it sounds like a learned habit the way he pees. My suggestions are:
1) Invest in a Feliway diffuser, pricey, but good
2) Buy an 18 gal. rubbermaid tote to use as a litterbox, very high sided
3) keep up with the natural treatments & such

What is he eating? And is he declawed?

No, he is not declawed, i don't believe in that. That's one thing he's always been great about, I got him properly trained on a post when he was young using catnip and he loves to scratching post.

One theory I've always had is that he was kinda old by the time I got him and got him neutured, so the spraying thing was probably pretty engrained in his pysche at that point. for all I know he was more like a full year old when i adopted him, who knows.

so by diffuser you mean that plug in I kept seeing mentioned in that sticky about peeing problems. yes, i read all 7 pages of posts lol. I don't care about the cost, money isn't a conern. wouldn't have spent what I did on all the vet care and surgery if I cared about that..

oh sorry..as for what he's eating..I buy it from the vet, never seen it in stores. Its Urinary SO or somethign like that..

Have you tried a top entry litterbox?

Y'know like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...021018-3839959

You can make your own by cutting a hole in the lid of a big rubbermaid as well. Feliway, the diffuser spray, really helps a lot of cats feel more comfortable. It's basically just making them feel really safe and secure from a scent marking point of view.

I.e cats mark things by rubbing against things and the feliway synthesises that. It's not a drug for the cat or an anti depressant or anything. It's more like the smell of newly baked bread or other "comfort" smells for us humans, just for cats.

oooh, never tried the top entry box idea, didn't even know about it. can't hurt, worst thing i'll do is ruin a rubbermaid container and waste 5 minutes in the garage with an air tool lol.

well, in the new house I'd be planning on putting his box in the laundry room, which has a concrete floor, its the only place to put it that makes sense and would make an accidents on his part easy to clean up. i

Sounds like a plan, and I think you're fantastic for all you've done so far. One thing I wouldn't try is a totally covered box because many cats don't like it, though if his pee doesn't smell, it may work. Also, a lot of male cats don't like a box at all for #1, but need just a flat place... I rigged the lid of a R-maid box just a bit under (for stabilization) the regular box our other cats use, and just put a little bit of litter in there. He pees there, and while we do have to mop it daily, the box is out of the way and if yours will be in the bsmt and not stink, you might consider giving him the option, though whether he 'gets' it and then doesn't lift and spray would have to be seen.

Thanks Larke, we really have been giving this max effort for a long time, I should have thought to find a forum like this before for more advice and experiences like you guys are putting up.

Tarasgirl, I don't need any lectures at this stage please, I don't think you really read my initial post based on your response. If i didn't view him as family I wouldn't have written checks that add up to a downpayment on a Lexus just in the last 12 months alone trying to get him healthy. You would also would have seen that I did just put a very high sided box, that's the latest one I'm trying now.

Well, honestly if I think he'll just contain the behavior to spraying outside the box and I can find a way to make that managable in the new place then ok. concrete floor that is painted so easy to clean, the supps we put in his food have been keeping him so bacteria free lately his urine has stopped smelling, etc..then it could be ok i would think. he typically only pees on things away from his box when an infection settles in, which we're hoping we have that problem licked now with his newest herb/supplement regimine..one of which is a tiny capsule I manage to get down his throat every morning, which he's gotten pretty inventive pretending to swallow and then spitting back up at me lol.

I have a few cats that stand to pee and it goes straight out the back. I bought tall sided Sterilite bins (like Rubbermaid but less expensive). I don't bother cutting anything out of them and leave the lid at the store when I buy the bin.

My cats absolutely love these bins because 1) they have high sides and it gives them a better sense of privacy and 2) they are much bigger than a regular litter box.

Putting aside his recurring infections which you seem to have a good handle on, just try a taller box!

Well, I've had the super high sided box down for 2 days now and he doesn't seem to like it yet, but its only been 2 days. its def an intentional behavior..he starts with his butt down and peeing in the litter then lifts his butt up to shoot it out of the box, weird as hell. he's had periods of a month or so like after the surgery and then again in the spring where he stopped doing it. peed normally in the box and all was well. i cram as much water as I can a day into him through the super soupy wet food concoction with his powered supps in it that he likes and keeping fresh filtered water in his bowl and he was peeing probably 4+ times a day and all in the box. thought I had it licked for a bit there..

Thanks for the pawprint laureen, not sure what that is, but thanks we use Vbulletin also over at www.ls1tech.com which I help run, but I don't recognize some of the features you guys have turned on here with the .gif's below names and stuff. pretty cool.

Update:
I bought a plug in thing yesterday, not even 24 hours so not sure how its working, but he has the plug in and the real high sided box at the moment.

Originally Posted by SeanZ28

Update:
I bought a plug in thing yesterday, not even 24 hours so not sure how its working, but he has the plug in and the real high sided box at the moment.

Click to expand...

You're doing all the right things -- keep up the good work!

A lot of male cats, like male humans, prefer to "stand and deliver" -- we have two very large, high-sided litterboxes called Potty-Jo's (available mailorder through a private company -- you might look it up with search engine if interested) and two covered litterboxes which accomodate the guys nicely. And the plug-ins are probably a good thing -- I just use the Feliway spray, which is the same thing but you apply it where you want.

Put a little bit of Cat Attract into the tall litter box to draw him in. That usually gets them interested if nothing else will. You can find it at a lot of Petsmarts (litter form), or from your vet (additive form).