Hello everyone,
I never thought I'd be visiting a forum for my kitty problems, but I'm very glad I found thecatsite. I've spent the last few hours reading about cat behavior, nutrition, and stories. After work, I'm immediately driving to a pet store I never knew existed to buy supplies I never knew existed thanks to my time on this site today.
My girlfriend and I bought Imba a few months ago. We live in a quiet house without children or excessive noise with 2 roomates. Our roomates have a 3-4 year old male cat named Milo. Milo is a very sweet cat with a huge head. Imba absolutely terrorizes him - he'll run, hiss, growl, but never bite or claw at her. It's almost unfair to watch, so we typically let him outside during the day.
Imba was born on December 6th, and is a female Siamese (much to our chagrin after thinking she was male for quite some time - our Vet informed us of this on April Fools day - you can imagine our confusion). We had her spayed at the 4 month mark, and aside from a bumpy belly, that went very well.
A short time prior to having her spayed, the smell in our room began getting worse and worse, and we realized she had been urinating in 2 out of 4 corners of the room - seemingly since we brought her home. Armed with a black light and a spray bottle of Nature's Miracle, we proceeded to spray down a good 1/5th of the surface area of the room that was simply covered in urine. We also noticed she had picked a spot downstairs next to the television where some wires were uncovered to deposit urine (she likes peeing on wires).
At that point, she had been staying in our bedroom while we were at work, with her litter box (filled with the crystal litter) in the bathroom and her food next to our bed (we had only fed her dry food at this time). Our bed and bathroom are relatively large as far as rooms go, so she had plenty of space to move around. Instead of giving her free roam over the bed and bathroom during the day, we made the (wrong?) decision to keep her shut in the bathroom while we were at work. That worked for a time, but she began urinating on the tile right in front of her litter box, or behind the toilet.
Shortly thereafter, I escalated my buying practices and continued my quest to get the darn cat to pee in the litter box. I purchased a Bissell green machine carpet cleaner, a gallon of Natures Miracle, 3 more litter boxes, and a seemingly lifetime supply of 'Cat Attract' kitten litter. We also switched her food away from 'Science Diet' to 'Blue' dry food, and began feeding her half a small can of wet food daily.
I took her to the vet for a full checkup and she was cleared of any possible UTI (she did have pink eye, which we have since cured with medication the vet sold us). We then spent quite some time going around the room with the black light expunging the infamous orange spots on the floor with the Bissell and enzyme cleaner. We gradually switched her over to the new litter, and added the 3 more litter boxes around the room.
That was about 2 weeks ago. Since then, she has definitely adapted to using the litter boxes as her primary target for urination. Every once in a while, in the middle of the night, however, I'll look over and she's peeing on the floor next to the litter box! Although she has made a real improvement, she still refuses to pee in her box and I'm still finding orange spots in the same corners.
To date, we have constantly kept her boxes clean, changed her litter, added more boxes, neutralized all urine spots, added/removed various carpets/covers/pads from around the litter boxes, and overall done everything listed in the large pee topic in this forum.
I'm at my wits end here! Can anyone think of anything else I can try to get her to go in her boxes?
I never thought I'd be visiting a forum for my kitty problems, but I'm very glad I found thecatsite. I've spent the last few hours reading about cat behavior, nutrition, and stories. After work, I'm immediately driving to a pet store I never knew existed to buy supplies I never knew existed thanks to my time on this site today.
My girlfriend and I bought Imba a few months ago. We live in a quiet house without children or excessive noise with 2 roomates. Our roomates have a 3-4 year old male cat named Milo. Milo is a very sweet cat with a huge head. Imba absolutely terrorizes him - he'll run, hiss, growl, but never bite or claw at her. It's almost unfair to watch, so we typically let him outside during the day.
Imba was born on December 6th, and is a female Siamese (much to our chagrin after thinking she was male for quite some time - our Vet informed us of this on April Fools day - you can imagine our confusion). We had her spayed at the 4 month mark, and aside from a bumpy belly, that went very well.
A short time prior to having her spayed, the smell in our room began getting worse and worse, and we realized she had been urinating in 2 out of 4 corners of the room - seemingly since we brought her home. Armed with a black light and a spray bottle of Nature's Miracle, we proceeded to spray down a good 1/5th of the surface area of the room that was simply covered in urine. We also noticed she had picked a spot downstairs next to the television where some wires were uncovered to deposit urine (she likes peeing on wires).
At that point, she had been staying in our bedroom while we were at work, with her litter box (filled with the crystal litter) in the bathroom and her food next to our bed (we had only fed her dry food at this time). Our bed and bathroom are relatively large as far as rooms go, so she had plenty of space to move around. Instead of giving her free roam over the bed and bathroom during the day, we made the (wrong?) decision to keep her shut in the bathroom while we were at work. That worked for a time, but she began urinating on the tile right in front of her litter box, or behind the toilet.
Shortly thereafter, I escalated my buying practices and continued my quest to get the darn cat to pee in the litter box. I purchased a Bissell green machine carpet cleaner, a gallon of Natures Miracle, 3 more litter boxes, and a seemingly lifetime supply of 'Cat Attract' kitten litter. We also switched her food away from 'Science Diet' to 'Blue' dry food, and began feeding her half a small can of wet food daily.
I took her to the vet for a full checkup and she was cleared of any possible UTI (she did have pink eye, which we have since cured with medication the vet sold us). We then spent quite some time going around the room with the black light expunging the infamous orange spots on the floor with the Bissell and enzyme cleaner. We gradually switched her over to the new litter, and added the 3 more litter boxes around the room.
That was about 2 weeks ago. Since then, she has definitely adapted to using the litter boxes as her primary target for urination. Every once in a while, in the middle of the night, however, I'll look over and she's peeing on the floor next to the litter box! Although she has made a real improvement, she still refuses to pee in her box and I'm still finding orange spots in the same corners.
To date, we have constantly kept her boxes clean, changed her litter, added more boxes, neutralized all urine spots, added/removed various carpets/covers/pads from around the litter boxes, and overall done everything listed in the large pee topic in this forum.
I'm at my wits end here! Can anyone think of anything else I can try to get her to go in her boxes?