Excessive Nighttime Meows/vindictive Urination?

[chachahowski]

Hello,

My cat 12 year old cat, Lily has recently increased in her annoying habit of meowing at us all throughout the night. She has always done this a little bit, but now she meows every hour on the hour (usually starting around 3 am) until I wake up. If he wakes up before me she will still come to our bedroom and meow at me until I get up. Since I have had Lily I have allowed her to come into my bedroom freely and she was allowed to sleep on my bed. Unfortunately, my boyfriend is a light sleeper so we have taken to shutting our bedroom door if she starts meowing and will not stop. We have done this twice this week and both times she has peed on/in front of our front door and then last night on the rug in front of the front door. I feel as though she does it because she was angry that we shut her out of the bedroom.

Some more background,

• She has recently been diagnosed with IBD (or lymphoma) but we are treating her with a steroid medication called predisolone and her IBD symptoms have stopped.
• She has two litter boxes (because excessive elimination was a symptom of her IBD for awhile as she was using the litter box excessively). This also stopped with the introduction of predisolone until the incidents I described.
• Her litter boxes were both clean, I just put brand new fresh litter in them yesterday when I got home from work.
• We thought she might be hungry so we started giving her one of her meals right before we go to bed
• I feel like the meowing might be related to boredom, but she is not a very playful cat. I buy her toy after toy and she really lays on them and rubs her face on them. The only toy she will actually play with is a laser pointer. She can't be bothered with anything else (she's always been like this).

Anyone have similar issues that have any insight?

 

[moorspede]

My partner and I find that we have to be really inventive and interactive with our cats when it comes to play, we have a cat with a weight problem, she's very food orientated and is a couch potato. She will only play in specific ways and quickly grows bored with the games. The second part of the first article deals with cats who will not play and older cats. It takes you to the second article listed and some articles on dealing with stressed cats.

Mental games may be better for her eg food puzzle games or perhaps catnip?

How and why do cats play?
Playing with Your Cat: 10 Things You Need To Know

There is a vid which helped me with my cats by Jackson Galaxy called "Train your cats to let you sleep," you can find it at youtube. I assume you know of it since you mentioned that your cat will not play?

 

[sargon]

Meowing cats often are bored or lonely, but yours has some recent health issues, so you should probably rule out medical causes first.

Also, you mentioned having a food oriented cat, so your midnight meowing may be about hunger.

My cat LOVES to play, but not every toy strikes her fancy. A few toys that I had good results with have been:the bergan turbo scratcher (the catit track toy that is similar is an even bigger hit); cat dancer compleat (the one that has an adhesive pad you use to allow your cat to play with it on their own), and golf balls ( both foam and plastic wiffle ball style)

 

[cat nap]

Along with the excellent advice, posted above, I would add:
When Lily meows at you, and wakes you up, does she want you to follow her?
Or does she just want you to be awake?

The urination is not vindictive, since cats don't really urinate inappropriately to get back at someone, but rather the root causes are often medical, and then may become behavioural.

I would take Lily back to the Vet, and ask them to do a urine culture test, to rule out any UTI problems.

In your case, the prednisolone and IBD may also be adding to Lily's meowing, since Pred makes a cat more hungry/thirsty and need to urinate more. It probably affects the cat's behaviour and moods, as it does in humans.
However, Lily needs the pred to reduce the pain and inflammation of IBD symptoms,...so if you can manage to move her one litter box, to outside your door, or near to where you notice her wanting to pee, that would help her, to find it quickly.

Also, you do need to thoroughly clean any urine spots, with an enzymatic cleaner, so that she does not smell any in the carpet, or underneath, and then repeat going there.
How To Remove Cat Urine

 

[chachahowski]

I always make sure to clean the urine spots with enzyme cleaner and her litter box is about a foot away from the spot where she pees.

The urination has been a problem in conjunction with the IBD symptoms so they did run urine tests when we have taken her to the vet recently and she did not have any indication of a UTI.

If she meows and I wake up and follow her downstairs she will quietly go to sleep on the recliner or lay on me as I sleep on the couch. If my boyfriend wakes up, she will stay in our room and meow at me until I get up.

 

[Willowy]

Steroids have some really weird side effects. Here's a list, it's for humans but I assume cats can have similar reactions: Prednisolone Side Effects in Detail - Drugs.com

Oh, here's one for pets: http://m.petmd.com/pet-medication/prednisone-prednisolone

Sleep problems, agitation, and increased urination are mentioned.

Is there a room away from the bedroom that she could stay in at night? I know that's not really an option in a small house or apartment but if you have a laundry room or something like that, having her go in there at night will at least help you sleep. She'll still feel weird, poor girl, but at least you won't be so tired that you lose patience with her.