Help Please! Urgent!

I need help, i'm about to lose my cat, well probably all 3 of them. A couple of times i have left my cats in my room, like a night or something. so they used the bathroom in there. We've cleaned the floors and everything, yet they kept peeing. we even changed the carpet, and they peed again, (this all hapened within the last 2 years) and then finally we put a hardwood floor down in my room-kinda(its lamenant) well, this morning, my cat peed in the corner (one of the places they had been peeing before). this is a brand new floor-and we cleaned the concrete underneath. yet she peed. i cleaned it up as fast as i could, but i know the smell is still there becasue some of it seeped down into a crack. I am going to try and replace just this one slide, before my parents find out. My dad threatened that if they pee on my floor again that he is going to get rid of them! and he can't, i wouldn't make it w/out them, and they wouldn't make it w/out me (just trust me on that one, they are silly). I don't know what to do, i need to change this one piece of floor-which i found is going to be harder than i thought cause i tried, and couldn't do it.

but how do i stop them from peeing? they are all liter trained. should i put a cat box in my room? cause we have one in the basement already. (which is where my room is). i need them to stop, i'm in tears, i can't have my cats taken away, i can't, i love them, but this peeing problem has got to stop, they don't get locked in there anymore. i don't know what to do-i love my baby's soo much, and i can't stand not letting them in my room cause they just love the window, but ahhhh, please help!

First, we need to know for sure that the problem is urinating rather than spraying. If the cat is standing and the urine shoots straight back so that he/she is aiming high on the wall or side of the couch, it is spraying. If the cat squats while urinating, it is normal urination. This hand-out is for urination problems rather than for spraying.

The first and most important thing to do is to take the cat to the vet! You need to specify that the cat is urinating outside the box so that the vet knows what to look for. Urinating outside the litter box is the #1 symptom of urinary tract problems! A urinary blockage can quickly kill a cat! If the cat is sick the only thing that will imporve the behavior is medication.

If the vet says she is okay, then consider making a few changes:

• If you use a covered litter box, take off the lid. Many cats refuse to use covered boxes.

• Most cats prefer fine-grained unscented litter. So, try changing litter even if she liked this litter in the past.

• Most cats prefer to poop in a different box than the one in which they pee. So have at least two boxes for one cat.

• If you have more than one cat, make sure you have at least one litter box per cat PLUS one extra box. So, if you have two cats, three litter boxes is ideal. Do not place the boxes right next to each other. Two boxes that are together is the same as just one box in the catâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s mind!

• Make sure you scoop the litter box daily, and with multiple cats, scoop twice daily. Cats often refuse to use dirty boxes. Most of us avoid toilets that are full of pee and poop. Cats are even more fastidious than us humans and certainly have more delicate senses of smell, so of course they do not want to step in a box full of old feces and urine! A clean rug is much more attractive than a dirty box!

• If your litter boxes are old, they may have absorbed odors even if you regularly clean them. So, try buying new boxes.

• Make sure your litter boxes are in a place where the cat feels safe while going potty. If she is disturbed by you or your kids or another cat or dog while she is trying to potty, she will choose to use a safer location. So, move the litter box to a location where she can see the comings and goings of the other people and animals in the house. You can set up the box in the corner of a room, then surround the box with nice house plants. It will be attractive and open enough for the cat to feel safe!

• Put a litter box on each level (floor) of the house.

• Make sure you thoroughly clean all old urine spots on the rug and elsewhere. If she can smell the old urine she will think that place is a good place to potty. Use a flourescent black light to find old urine and treat all old spots with an enzymatic cleanser.

• Try putting a plastic carpet runner upside down on the places she likes to urinate....most cats don't like to walk on the "spikes" so they will avoid the covered spots.

• Put something real smelly where she likes to urinate...most cats hate the smell of citrus, so try putting citrus scented air freshener or orange peels or citrus potpourri where she urinates.

• According to Cat Behaviorist Amy Shojai- if your cat is peeing on personal items the cat is probably stressed out over something. Urinating on some object that holds your scent is calming to him. If you can eliminate the stressor, chances are good that the potty problem will end.

• If your cat is standing inside the litter box and aiming outside the box, you simply need a larger box! Try a Rubbermaid under-bed storage container as a litter box instead of the typical small box.

It is peeing-cause its on the floor. its been going on like this for a long time though. i thought about the UTI, but only the peeing outside the box seems to fit, i don't know, i just don't want to lose her :-(

A couple of times i have left my cats in my room, like a night or something. so they used the bathroom in there.

Click to expand...

they are all liter trained. should i put a cat box in my room? cause we have one in the basement already. (which is where my room is).

Click to expand...

Are you saying that you put your cats in your room and close the door?
Or is the door open and they have easy access to a litter box? How far away is the box?

Frankly- if my cats were peeing to the point of having to get rid of them I would put three litter boxes in my room where they absolutely couldn't miss them.

I always heard you needed one litter box per cat plus one, so maybe the one box is used and dirty and they feel they have no choice.
Give them more choices.

Sometimes cats pee out of the litter box for a few reasons.
1 They don't like that cat litter no more
2 Its way to dirty and they want fresh and clean
3 They no longer like where the litter box is

I Have 6 cats and they do get picky I have some that like one type of cat litter and the others don't and once the litter gets to dirty they go where they want so I end up cleaning all the potties every three days just so I know they won't have any problems

We never ment to leave them in there, like i would leave the bedroom (when i didn't sleep in there) and they were in there w/out me knowing, so they got shut in for the night. i really don't know why they do this. this morning all 3 of my cats were in my room while i was getting ready, so the door was shut. but the cat that peed didn't beg to leave the room, she went towards the closet(a place she used to pee) but i got her out (i thought she was just being curious sense my room was like redone), and then i saw her doing something to the ground like what she does to the cat little after she goes, and i ran over to her and sure enough there was a little puddle of pee. i didn't even think she was the peeer(i thought the bratty cat was doing all the peeing) but it was my baby girl-she's 8, and even when she was a kitten, she didn't go the bathroom until we bought them the litter box. All 3 of my cats have at one point been stuck in my room and peed, so i know she might have gotten into the habbit. if this is the case, how would i break the habbit.
I can't tell my parents she peed on my new floor or they are gone, so i cant' take her to the vet right now (we are fixing up our house because i'm having a graduation party, so we have NO extra money for the cats at all) I don't think it is a UTI because she hasn't shown anyother symptoms except pee outside the box. and all 3 of my cats do, the youngest does because she gets mad at me, or she is stuck somewhere, the fatter one pees in the bathtub after he eats (he eats seperate from the other 2 cause he's on a diet) so they have all gotten use to peeing outside the box, which typing this making me think it really is a habbit-which i desperately need to brake. So more kitty boxes would help? cause sadly i do only have one, and its cleaned atleast once a week. maybe i should have 3. 1 in my room, 1 where we have one now and 1 in our new bathroom, do you think that if this is a habbit it will work? I'm so confused, sorry about the blabbering, i'm thinking as i go along, especially sense i've calmed down. Thank you for all your help

I would put at least 2 boxes IN your room, and anytime you see them exhibiting that kind of behavior, pick them up and pop them into a litter box!

I would assume that you will need to retrain them the same way that you would initially train a kitten to use the box.

However, I am no expert. Sounds like a tough situation. I wish you the best of luck.

Originally Posted by Onyabear7

I I don't think it is a UTI because she hasn't shown anyother symptoms except pee outside the box.

Click to expand...

Ah, but peeing outside the box is usually the only symptom of a UTI that the cat will have!

the fatter one pees in the bathtub after he eats

Click to expand...

Peeing in the bathtub is almost always a sign of either a blockage of the urethra (especially in male cats) or a UTI.

So more kitty boxes would help? cause sadly i do only have one, and its cleaned atleast once a week.

Click to expand...

Oh dear....you have one box for three cats and clean it only once a week? This might be your problem. Think of it....would you like to sit on a toilet full of other people's pee and poop or would you decide instead to use a clean place instead? I can't blame the cats for peeing outside the box. If you have three boxes (minimum) and scoop twice daily, your problem just might go away.

I have to do something, my dad is sooo mad right now about how the basement smells and other stuff, maybe if i do that it will smell better and he won't threaten me with them leaving anymore:-(

how long will an UTI go untreated until it becasue painful/deadly for the cat? Fatcat pees in the bathtub because he eats in the bathroom with the door closed, i think he pees becasue he gets mad we leave him in there for about an hour (barely enough time for the other cats to eat), but could that still mean a UTI? :-(

Thank you for the help

One thing I didn't notice anyone saying is that their current box may be too near their food? They won't go near their food.

That said, I had a terrible time with a cat going on the rug. And I put a litter box about 10 feet away in another room, and it worked like a charm! (I hadn't had one on the main floor of the house before, see.)

Are you cleaning the places where they pee properly? If there is any smell remaining (you may not be able to smell it) they will be attracted back to the same place and pee there again.

I agree that you really need more boxes and to clean them more often, but I also agree that they really need to be checked out by a vet first. I don't understand why your parents would get rid of the cats just because they have a (possibly physical) problem - do they not like the cats or something?