Advice for a new cat owner who got peed on!

Hi there,

I adopted Simba, a 3-year old male Bengal 2 months ago. He was found outdoors, wandering. I thought things were going really well, although he seems a bit bored, and maybe lonely, being indoors all the time. My husband and I are not around during the day.

So here's the shocking problem: in the middle of the night, while I lay soundly sleeping, he got up on the bed, and peed on my face! It was not a spray, but a full-on pee.

We play with him a lot, give him lots of love when he's in the mood. The only thing I can think of is that he was mad at me because I scooped him up and took him inside when he tried to bolt while on a lead. [We've been introducing him to the idea of going outside while on a lead.]

This morning he returned to his litter box, and peed normally. He did have a full vet examination 1.5 months ago.

Any ideas? And another question--does someone have a recommendation on getting another cat as a companion?

Thanks!

Oh, wow. If Simba were a dog, I'd say it was a dominance problem, but a cat? I hope somebody here can help you. If you browse a bit through the older threads, you'll find plenty of advice about introducing another cat into your household.

Take your cat back to the vet right away! Urinary tract infections/blockages are the number one causes of inappropriate urination. Make sure you tell the vet what happened so the vet will know what to look for. A general medical exam will not detect these illness, so make sure the vet checks for urinary problems.

If the vet finds nothing physically wrong, please click here for a lengthy thread on stopping inappropriate urination.

I am adjusting a previously indoor/outdoor cat to indoors only. Bob regularly peed in my bed at night for the first 6 weeks, and one night on me.

There is a lot of good information in the inappropriate peeing thread and I used many of those tips. One additional thing that I did with Bob is to pick him up and plant him in the litter box immediately before going to bed each night. I would plant him there and praise the heck out of him (without praise he will think it's punishment). He quit doing this about 6 weeks ago.