Help - My Cat won't stop peeing!

Hey there,

Firstly I would like to say that I have read the previousy posted suggestions on this topic, and I've tried practically all of them and I'm still in trouble!

A while ago my cat started peeing up the wall when in his kitty litter, so I tried cleaning the wall, to no avail. I took him to the vets and they gave me feliway spray, and said to spray it around the house to calm him down in general, that didn't work. For the sake of my wall I covereed it in some washable sticky back plastic, and even with the noise of the pee hitting the cover he still did it. Then I tried a covered litter tray and for a while that worked, I figured he could stand up as much as he liked.

Then one day I was laying on the bed and i noticed a strange stain on my Cream curtain, and on closer inspection it was pee, lots and lots of pee. ( I have long curtains that are hidden by a dresser a lot of the time) so i took it down and I washed it, put it back up and within a day he had pee'd on it again, so this time i just cleaned the stain so it wouldnt show but he could still smell himself, i figured he didn't like the detergent, but since then i have found 3 more stains on the curtain, and one on my lounge curtain too.

Then the other night I was watching TV and I keep a bean bag to rest my feet on and he sleeps on it, it's mostly his to be honest, and he jumped up on it and then he proceeded to pee on it right in front of me, just like with the lounge curtain. I cleaned it and sprayed it with feliway because i didnt want him doing that again, but when I came in from shopping today he had done a very large pee on the beanbag again.

He is also peeing on the wall by my front door, I had seen him do that once before but put it down to neighbourhood cats being near and him marking his territory, but hes peeing there so much now the paint is bubbling off the wall and im cleaning it up twice a day because the hallway reeks.

I have tried feliway, pepper, newspaper, covering the walls, giving him extra fusses in case he feels neglected somehow, the vet says he's OK health wise (maybe I should get a second opinion).

He is my only cat, and since I moved house 2 years ago he has kinda refused to make his territory here, I leave a window open for him and he doesnt venture more than 3ft from the window if he even goes out at all. Im really starting to worry that perhaps he's just not happy with his new home and would prefer somewhere else, and that would juse kill me because he is a real companion to me and I love him to bits.

Can someone please help?

Has he been checked for a UTI? Have you tried new litter or boxes?
Is it possible to throw out the things he is peeing on? What I mean is this. Some cats are finicky about things. I had a cat that likes to pee on the bed, on plastic bags and on laundry piles. So I made sure bags were always put away, no laundry piles were left out and baskets were covered, and the bed was throughouly cleaned with an enzymatic cleaner and I just threw a huge thick blanket over the bed to protect it or kept the bedroom door closed. So you can replace the curtains with blinds or shorter ones, cover your bed, and get a covered litterbox. That should help. Clean your bedding with an enzymatic cleaner and try a feliway plug in along with the spray in the bedroom.

But most importantly, if he hasn't been tested for a UTI, do that first. If so, treat that, get him on mostly wet food of good quality and maybe a dry food for UTI health.

Is he peeing or is he spraying? Is he neutered? Has he been checked for a urinary tract infection and/or crystals?

Stephanie

Sorry I forgot to mention he has been neutered since he was little and he's now 4 years old. But he does look as if there is still something there, even though the vet says otherwise.

He seems to spray the walls but he crouches to pee on other things, so I guess its a mixture of both.

I have tried changing his Litter 3 times, and before I got him a covered litter tray I changed his normal tray twice.

I currently have him on whiskas pouches and a complete dry food, but he doesn't seem to be too interested in eating at the moment, I've been putting it down to the heat.

we had a boy cat start to do that and it never stopped, although he was older. He had been a barn cat and there were other cats around our house so we think he started doing it to mark his territory and then just never stopped, we had a big house and he mostly did it in the basement but also other places (never had a UTI/crystals, went to the vet twice a year and always clean) we didn't try all the litter box stuff and just cleaned up after him, he was half outdoor so it wasn't THAT bad. I know in my apartment i'd lose my mind though if my male sprayed.

The ONLY thing I found that worked that I don't think you've tried is the tinfoil. Place loose tinfoil on the things he likes to pee on, or the spots. That stopped one of my kitties after a bout with a UTI and he's back to the box.

A small update..

Well he's still peeing on the wall by the front door, but he does seem to have left the curtains and the bean bag alone for over a week now.

I had some click pack wooden flooring down by the front door, and I thought maybe it was holding some old smells from previous animals in the house so I ripped it up the other day and cleaned the place down thoroughly, this stopped him for a couple of hours, however I got in from walking the dog this morning and found a fresh pee by the door, so as a last resort I have covered the wall in tin foil, however while I was putting it up on the wall the cat was playing with the spare little tear off bits, so something tells me he doesn't mind the noise..

I really hope the foil works, cuz that is my final option, then I don't know what to do.

Has he seen the vet yet?

Do you have cats that roam in your neighborhood? (Not your cats, necessarily, but other male cats that you see.) If so, one of them could be spraying at or near your door. Therefore your cat may be spraying to mark his house as "his" territory.

Also, has there been any changes to the routine recently? Could be stress from some kind of change in your cat's environment. Whatever's going on, I think a vet visit is in order.

Stephanie

I am also of the opinion that he is marking his territory.

I have one that does this and I tape up paper towels where he likes to spray. I change them daily. I also spray with Feliway. I go through a LOT of paper towels and Nature's Miracle.

I tried the Feliway diffusers put he just peed on them.

If you can, I say get rid of the bean bag. In my experience cats like to pee in them for some reason. I don't know if it is a combination of the vinyl like surface and the squishy feel of them. Every time I have ever had a bean bag chair, one cat or another has peed in it. Same with rubber backed bath mats...they always get peed on.

I have never tried it, but you might want to ask your vet about buspar or some other anxiety type medication to see if that will alter his behavior. Feeling insecure in his territory may be contributing to it.

Also, you say you leave a window open for him, but he doesn't go out. I am not sure if I am understanding this correctly. Do you mean it is open without a screen so he can come and go as he pleases? Could it be that other cats are coming in or up to the window and threatening him?

In my old house the neighbors un-neutered male cat used to come and attack my cats through the screen. One started to peed under that particular window.

If there is a dominant outdoor cat in this area and your kitty is a rather subordinate cat he may be getting bullied by the "resident" outdoor cat.

I leave a window open for him without any obstructions to the outside, and he has started to venture a bit more than 3 feet from the window he now goes 5.

The beanbag has been free of pee now for over a week so I think maybe he was just marking it because it was new.

I havent seen many cats on my side of the avenue, there are quite a few cats around and i did hear him saying hello to one of them the other night, but when I opened the door to see what the noise was about ( i thought it was him meowing to come in) he came in and left the other cat alone.

I tried the tin foil suggestion, and after he played with the foil for a while he just kept on peeing on it, but I got really frustrated and decided to put a second looser layer on the wall for added noise, and I made sure I shook the foil at him to make him know it was a bad noise before I put it up, and as far as I know he stuck to just peeing in his litter tray yesterday, so I'm going to see how today goes

There are also these things that you can get that are activated by a motion sensor. When the cat comes within the range of the sensor, it blasts them with canned air. We considered this when training our cat to stay off the counters, but decided against it. You could try those.

It sounds to me as if there very well could be an outside stray kitty that he feels threatened by,Or it could be scents left by the previous home owners pets. Basically it sounds that he is stressed by a threatening scent or presence.....