Can someone help Alex?

Hello Everyone,
I have a 6 year old black long-haired cat named Alex, he has been with us since he was a kitten. Unfortunately he has developed a behavorial problem of urinating & spraying throughout our home. This problem started about 6 months ago & we are at our wits end. He mainly stays in our basement now where we have had to remove all of the carpeting due to this problem. We have visited the vet and a behavorialist, with temporary results. To add to this problem, we are expecting twins in April, and we cannot afford to continue with treatment of Alex. Our resources just won't support this. We love him and want to find a great home for him, someone who may be able to cure him of this problem. We really do not even know what triggered this behavior after 6 years.

If anyone out there can help us, please let me know. Any other questions please contact me.

Thanks to all,
Steve - Accountbiggs

P.S. We live in the Akron, Ohio area

Some suggestions if you want to try to keep him:

Get a black light and find all the spots he has sprayed, clean them well with cleaner designed for that purpose. Secure the house if you have any pet doors. Other cats outside could be making him upset enough to spray. Take a damp cloth and rub it on him a lot and get his scent all over it, then rub it everywhere he sprays. Get Feliway room diffusers and use them in the home, its like putting their "happy" scent from their face all over the place. There is a also a spray that does the same which can be put in more specific areas. Have him neutered if he is not, of course. And you did already goto the vet, so that was my last suggestion.

Good luck wether you keep him or find him a new home. It is not an easy problem to deal with.

Has Alex been nuetered?

Yes he has been nuetered & de-clawed.
Steve

Originally Posted by Accountbiggs

Yes he has been nuetered & de-clawed.
Steve

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I guess he would not make a good "barn cat" then either. Poor Alex.

Steve, I've moved your post to our Behavior forum. There is a sticky at the top of the forum about inappropriate peeing behavior-this might help, and I'm sure our members will give you good advice.

One of my rescue kitties, Colonel Cupcake No, started marking/spraying and it turned out he's had a bladder infection...we're now on the second go-round of medications for it...today's xray didn't show any bladder stones, but they could be very tiny..if he's still got blood/bacteria in his urine in two weeks, we'll go further...
If this behavior is totally out of character for your buddy, I'd make sure to have the vet check him for infection and if inconclusive results, an xray/contrast dye xray can reveal alot....a picture's worth a thousand words, as the saying goes...
My catrescuing friend Kay had a cat that she insisted the vet do an xray on...his urinalysis had been normal, yet the xray showed a stone...it was removed and he recovered....
Co-incidentally, my little papillon dog, Mickey Mouse, began having accidents in the house in November...got upset stomach from pain, and an xray showed a bladder stone the size of a nickel in him!!! He had it taken out and is fine now....
The older I get, the more I find that problem behavior from our animal friends is usually from a very logical/physical source...it can take some really determined detective work to identify and help them with their underlying issue.
Thanks and Best Wishes,
Ellen, the Keeper of the Herd

I wonder if they have examined the declaw site? Sometimes aversion to the litter pans on cats that have been declawed comes from either an infection in the feet, or from the wrong type of litter being used, it bothers them so they don't use the litter pan. Try shredded newspaper and see if that makes a difference? And give him three litterpans full of shredded newspaper and not just one.

Alex has been to the vet several times no stone, this is totally behavorial. No litter problems either.