How can I monitor my cat’s urine output at home?

[Elanley]

I posted a thread earlier because my cat was showing some concerning symptoms. My vet told me theres nothing they can really do unless he’s blocked and to just keep monitoring him and keep him on pain and muscle relaxer medication while his new special prescription urinary care diet takes affect.
Anyway, in the meantime, I need to find a way to efficiently determine how often he’s actually producing urine in the catbox/how much.

I just don’t know of a good way to do this. Im not always at home, I have work, and he’s a longhaired cat so even if I linger around while he’s straining on the catbox to look at see if he’s peed or not I can almost never tell if he was successful or not. I need to keep a close eye on this to make sure if he does eventually get blocked I can get him in ASAP.

Have any of you monitored cat urine output levels before and if so, how did you do it?

 

[tabbytom]

Have any of you monitored cat urine output levels before and if so, how did you do it?

One way to do it is to use clumping litter. As your cat pees into the litter, the litter will clumped up and you can determine the amount by the size of the pee clump. Several marble sized clumps could indicate a blockage/or a blockage and if it's UTI, there'll be s tint of pink which is blood.
If it's golf balls size, it could be he's hydrated and he need more water intake either have a water drinking fountain or a plate filled with water for him if he drinks from any of it. Else, feed him with wet food (canned food) and you may want to add a little more water to the wet food just to increase his water intake.

The other thing to monitor is place a ip camera near his litterbox and either keep recording the whole day while you are out or have those that can set for motion sensor and each time he goes near or into the litterbox, you'll be informed through the camera app I your phone. This way you can see and hear if he's straining and crying while trying to pee.

A cat with UTI will visit the litterbox several times straining and crying as it tries to pee and producing nothing but maybe just droplets of urine.

Best is get your kitty to the vet and get some antibiotics for a faster treatment of the crystals rather than take the prescribed dry food and make sure your kitty get lots of water. It's very painful and distressing for the cat with UTI and not to mentioned the anxiety of the cat mommy.

Believe me, treat it ASAP the better. I know because my boy had UTI before and it just breaks my heart seeing him going through it.

 

[Mr. Meow]

I agree with the above. Just make sure that if you use the clumping litter measurement technique, that you clean the litter box every single day. If you forget, it may look like kitty is peeing more than they really are, which can hide any true issues going on.

I've also heard of people putting puppy pads over (or in place of) the litter in the box. It gives a similar visual aid to clumping litter. The only drawback is that some cats don't like/are confused by the puppy pads.

 

[di and bob]

Most cats pee into clumping litter and it is the size of a golf ball. Anything bigger is good, it really depends how often they pee. I had one cat that only peed a couple of times a day and his were the size of baseballs! Clumping litter is great to monitor their urine output. my cat had UTI once and peed often and cried. After a very sleepless night, thinking about blockage and getting up every time to make sure he peed at least a few drops, the vet told me a way to know the difference between the blockage and infection is to palpate or put you three fingers on his lower abdomen and press in to feel around. If you feel a hard, big mass that is firm and the size of a baseball, THAT is a blockage and is an emergency. He said he had felt them the size of a grapefruit! You might feel around now to know what normal is, or bring him in right away if you feel a big mass. Usually, when they have a UTI they are prescribed an antibiotic. Were blood tests run and ruled that out? I guess crystals wouldn't show up as an infection, so hopefully, his blood was checked. I give liquid antibiotics in a mall amount of tuna juice or Hartz Delectable Lickables in the stew. They love that!