Help! We have 2 indoor only cats who are brothers from the same litter, Mickey and Luke. They are now over 2 yrs old, and were neutered at around 5 months old. Mickey likes to knock things over, but apart from that, they're great guys. We have a cat-loving dog, Rita, who is nearly 4-years-old. They all get along perfectly.
On our property are a number of stray cats - they've been here before we ever were, and each summer sees new kittens while each late winter/mating season sees males leaving and families changing. So some cats have been here a few years while some have left and some were just born. Right now, we have a mother and three 7-week-old babies living around our garage and the back of the house while the other three got "exiled" to the front of the house when her babies were born (she hisses at them when they tried to eat in the usual spot outside the garage). The three in the front are a 14-month-old female (whose litter this year all died) and a 5-month-old brother a sister. The 14-month-old seems to have become the surrogate mom of her half-siblings since the Mom rejected them in June to complete her pregnancy and have her babies.
It should also be mentioned that my sister is going to adopt two of the babies, so I am outside many times a day playing with them, being with them, giving them food and water, and scooping their litter. So when I come in, even though I wash my hands, I may smell like a little 7-week-old boy and girl.
We've had some problems the last week with somebody of ours going outside the litter box. Right NEXT to the litter box, one of our cats was making pee and poo. Yesterday, out of nowhere, it seemed like the whole house smelled of cat pee, and I just woke up to the same smell. As in I went to bed last night and the bedroom didn't smell of pee. Last night, Luke told me it was Mickey going outside the litter box because he's jealous of my efforts with the new babies, and I can see that as possible. Mickey sits in the window and meows and rolls around and claws at the screen while I'm out there. When I come in, he wants to smell my hands. Even last night, I went to play with him and I hadn't seen the babies in hours, but he wanted to smell my hands. However, with the kitchen windows' location, Mickey has had a view and sniff of the babies since they were born, so they are not new threats. And we used to go outside and spend lots of time playing with the 2 five-month-olds when they were this age, so us hanging with outside cat babies is nothing new. Giving them a tiny litter box IS, but that's about it.
BUT our house has a lot of windows in every room, and they are all open. Our bedroom air conditioning blows from a few feet away from where the three in exile now live. I am wondering if there is a competing pee smell coming in, perhaps from Mason or a father of the new babies (since they wander over now and then), that would be very recent and literally all around our house and coming into the windows. I haven't seen or heard Mickey spray, and so far, I can't find any wet spots or visible pee markings. So we have NO idea where this pee is coming from - it could be outside or inside... even the basement where the litter box is has 4 ground level windows that are all open. Two of them are near places I KNOW Mason at least used to "do his business."
Can anybody help guess what could be going on here? Could the female mother outside be trying to mark territory? Could the basement pee somehow be filling the whole house? There is no smell coming off the back of Mickey, so I can't say for sure that this is HIS pee (other than the out-of-litter-box protests). It's really confusing, and right now, the smell is HUGE and seems to be coming from everywhere.
If anybody has any questions, just post them as I'd be happy to answer anything about our animal-loving world.
Meanwhile, today will be basement-cleaning day, and won't be easy as it's unfinished and uneven concrete everywhere.
Thanks,
Debbie
On our property are a number of stray cats - they've been here before we ever were, and each summer sees new kittens while each late winter/mating season sees males leaving and families changing. So some cats have been here a few years while some have left and some were just born. Right now, we have a mother and three 7-week-old babies living around our garage and the back of the house while the other three got "exiled" to the front of the house when her babies were born (she hisses at them when they tried to eat in the usual spot outside the garage). The three in the front are a 14-month-old female (whose litter this year all died) and a 5-month-old brother a sister. The 14-month-old seems to have become the surrogate mom of her half-siblings since the Mom rejected them in June to complete her pregnancy and have her babies.
It should also be mentioned that my sister is going to adopt two of the babies, so I am outside many times a day playing with them, being with them, giving them food and water, and scooping their litter. So when I come in, even though I wash my hands, I may smell like a little 7-week-old boy and girl.
We've had some problems the last week with somebody of ours going outside the litter box. Right NEXT to the litter box, one of our cats was making pee and poo. Yesterday, out of nowhere, it seemed like the whole house smelled of cat pee, and I just woke up to the same smell. As in I went to bed last night and the bedroom didn't smell of pee. Last night, Luke told me it was Mickey going outside the litter box because he's jealous of my efforts with the new babies, and I can see that as possible. Mickey sits in the window and meows and rolls around and claws at the screen while I'm out there. When I come in, he wants to smell my hands. Even last night, I went to play with him and I hadn't seen the babies in hours, but he wanted to smell my hands. However, with the kitchen windows' location, Mickey has had a view and sniff of the babies since they were born, so they are not new threats. And we used to go outside and spend lots of time playing with the 2 five-month-olds when they were this age, so us hanging with outside cat babies is nothing new. Giving them a tiny litter box IS, but that's about it.
BUT our house has a lot of windows in every room, and they are all open. Our bedroom air conditioning blows from a few feet away from where the three in exile now live. I am wondering if there is a competing pee smell coming in, perhaps from Mason or a father of the new babies (since they wander over now and then), that would be very recent and literally all around our house and coming into the windows. I haven't seen or heard Mickey spray, and so far, I can't find any wet spots or visible pee markings. So we have NO idea where this pee is coming from - it could be outside or inside... even the basement where the litter box is has 4 ground level windows that are all open. Two of them are near places I KNOW Mason at least used to "do his business."
Can anybody help guess what could be going on here? Could the female mother outside be trying to mark territory? Could the basement pee somehow be filling the whole house? There is no smell coming off the back of Mickey, so I can't say for sure that this is HIS pee (other than the out-of-litter-box protests). It's really confusing, and right now, the smell is HUGE and seems to be coming from everywhere.
If anybody has any questions, just post them as I'd be happy to answer anything about our animal-loving world.
Thanks,
Debbie
