Pleeeeeeeasseee HELP!

My neighbor, and good friend came over today in tears. She is soooooo discouraged! She has three cats, two are 2-3 year old females, and the oldest is an 8 yr. old girl named Tuffy. All are up to date with check-ups, shots, and all are spayed. The oldest girl, Tuffy, has taken to peeing on the kitty mat just outside the litterbox entrance. She does this all the time! The litter is changed regularly, my friend has tried different litters, different cleaning techniques, etc. The other two cats go, no problem. We cant figure out why Tuff has decided to do this. My friend is concerned that (a.) her husband has "had enough" and (b.) the other cats will pick up on this behaviour. A call to the vet has ruled out a UTI. Any ideas and suggestions? My friend is at her wits end, and is afraid she may have to give up her cat. I've considered taking her, but wonder how she will do with my boys as she is declawed and much older than my guys.

FYI Hissy, I copied and pasted your peeing post (LOL) and sent it on to my friend. Hopefully that helps. Still would like to hear if anyone else out there has had similar problems with adult cats?

Let them know what some UTI's do not show up in routine testing. The cat could be ill and this is why the peeing out of the box-

The cat needs to be checked out by a vet. Then throw away the kitty mat since it probably smells and cats will go back to a previous place if they can smell the urine.
Hope all goes well.

Put out another litter box (topless - a lot of cats don't like the enclosure) and just introduce her to it (away from the other one). You never know... and use a diff. kind of litter (UNscented, possibly softer on her feet).

with three cats she really needs to have four litter boxes, at a bare minimum three boxes

(general rule, one per cat and one extra)

i have two cats with one who visits often (a grandkitty) and there are four HUGE uncovered litter boxes
they all tend to poop in one box and use the other three for pee.
one girl will only go if she is alone,
another one will not go in a box unless it has NOTHING else in it!!
and the visiting grandkitty likes to kick the litter out of any box he gets in, so having the four boxes helps keep soiled litter from being sprayed all over the place

i know it is hard to find the room for so many boxes- i have two side by side in my living room (no, i do not ever have guests, so who cares?)
and the other two in a laundry room, in different private corners of that room


works great

the kitty peeing at the entrance to the box may have decided that she wants it to be all hers (some cats just do not like to share) and is marking the entrance hoping the other cats get the hint


good luck! that is always a tough one

I had a cat pooping AND peeing - in different places around the house. There turned out to be 2 problems. Solved the pooping by adding a litter box on the middle floor of the house close to where she had been pooping.

The peeing we just got "lucky." It wasn't a UTI, but they gave her antibiotics anyway. Didn't really help. Then we had her spayed. (We had to wait a while due to another problem she had earlier.) It turned out that there were multiple cysts on BOTH her ovaries. As soon as that was taken care of, she was a different cat.

As the cat is 8, I would tend to think it's a territory or "my litterbox" problem. If you friend can add another litterbox, she might be surprised at the result. Hope she resolves it!

Thanks for the tips you guys, I'm going to suggest the extra box for sure. She really is the sweetest little gal, I always call her the little old lady in the gang.

Originally Posted by Doc-n-SamsMom

My neighbor, and good friend came over today in tears.

She is soooooo discouraged! She has three cats, two are 2-3 year old females, and the oldest is an 8 yr. old girl named Tuffy. All are up to date with check-ups, shots, and all are spayed. The oldest girl, Tuffy, has taken to peeing on the kitty mat just outside the litterbox entrance. She does this all the time! The litter is changed regularly, my friend has tried different litters, different cleaning techniques, etc. The other two cats go, no problem. We cant figure out why Tuff has decided to do this.

My friend is concerned that (a.) her husband has "had enough" and (b.) the other cats will pick up on this behaviour. A call to the vet has ruled out a UTI. Any ideas and suggestions? My friend is at her wits end, and is afraid she may have to give up her cat. I've considered taking her, but wonder how she will do with my boys as she is declawed and much older than my guys.

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It sounds to me Tuffy is the queen/alpha female and she refuses to pee where the (sorry if I sound harsh) lesser females pee. Especially with it being 3 females in the house I would STRONGLY recommend a second or even a third litter box to keep them all happy. I had a mother and her brood once(fostered) and the male kittens would not go potty where the females had went(freshly scooped or not!) so maybe female urine is stronger, or ms.Tuffy wants a little privacy good luck tell her not to give up!!!!

Does your friend have boxes big enough for her? My cat, who is quite large, used to do this a lot; she would stand in the box with her butt pointed out the entrance and pee just outside the box. Got her a bigger box and the problem was solved (actually she still misses once in a while when she's in a rush).