Newby trying to figure this out

Hello everyone! I'm not really sure if I am doing this correctly, so just let me know if I'm not. I stumbled on this site looking for information about stopping my cat from peeing outside the litter box. What a pleasant surprise! This is a great site! I found a lot of useful information.

I have two cats, Higgins and Jeremy. Both are neutered males that I adopted from the SPCA. I think I know which one is having problems hitting the litter box, but I'm not sure. Their litter box is cleaned everyday, and the peeing only happens in the same room as the litter box (thank goodness). The only thing is that they are both happy, eat normally, play all the time, if they had a urinary tract infection wouldn't they act like sick cats? Right now they seem happy and healthy.

Again, thanks for the great site. Off to the vet we go..........

hi! just wanted to welcome you to the cat site! hope you will enjoy it here!

as for your question... i'm sure you did the right thing by heading to the vet. the only other thing i might ask is whether there is more than one litter box. i'm sure others will be able to help you more. might want to post this question in the behavior or health & nutrition forum.

anyway, glad to meet you!

First welcome to the site! There is a ton of information here, a lot of it stored nicely in our member's heads.

I'll go ahead and move this to the Behavior forum so our experts can weigh in.

Cats have become very adept at hiding pain and illness for basic survival, so no your cat may not "act" sick even if he is. Peeing outside the litterbox is one of their ways to communicate with us that something in their world is wrong. The first thing to do is get him thoroughly checked by your vet and get him a clean bill of health. Most of the time inappropriate elimination is a sign of an illness and once they feel better their litterbox habits return. If he's given the all clear by the vet, then you can work on behavioral issues.

Here is a link where we all tried to cover all the bases as to why this happens....Welcome to the board too!

Peeing inappropriately

Is your cat peeing in the same room, or trying to pee in the box and missing a little?

If it's trying to pee in the box, perhaps you could buy a new litter box, a BIG one the biggest you can find, and get it with a cover. That might help contain the pee IN the box, instead of a spot on the floor.

Good luck, and welcome!

As Angel said....perhaps he is standing in the box, but accidently aiming outside the box. If that is the case, buy a rubbermaid storage container that is made to slide under the bed. Get rid of the lid and use the base as a BIG litter box. That will easily solve the problem.

Also, as Hissy said, please click here for many excellent suggestions on ending inappropriate urination.

Let us know how the vet visit went.

lotso: Sometimes just having a big enough box works too! Actually it almost always worked with animals who just had bad aim, except for one of the last foster cats I had, Zene.
We have a huuuuge box, and many other medium and little sized ones, she would back right up to the edge of any of them, and hang her butt over the edge, no matter how big the pan was, lol.
But after she started using the covered litter box we didn't have a problem.

I just hope one of em works for you! Some cats do NOT like the covered boxes and wont step foot in them.