Older Male Cat Spraying =(

[fizzgig]

At the end of October we had to bring my grandma's cat, Tuffy, into our house because she had a stroke. Tuffy is about 13 years old and he was an indoor/outdoor cat at grandmas house (we suspect mostly outdoor because she really never bonded with him). We set him up in our den with a litter box, food and water for him, partially to help him adjust because he was super stressed by the move, but mostly to keep our other 3 two year old cats away from him. One of the young ones get along with Tuffy just fine, another one is starting to get along with him (still a work in progress), and the third we haven't been able to make much progress with the two getting along. During the day the door to the den is kept closed while everyone is at work. Once people are home the door to the den is open with a baby gate across the door so the cats can see each other without getting to each other. Late evening the other cats are locked up in "their" rooms and Tuffy gets to walk around the main floor of the house. So now we come to the problem..........in the den Tuffy uses his box like a perfect little boy, however when he is walking around the main floor of the house he has started to spray things............all over the main floor. We have tried a calming collar and the calming diffuser which doesn't seem to help. We also bought the Natures Miracle calming spray and that does work most of the time but we are using so much of it spraying all over the main floor of the house that we use like a quarter of a bottle a night and we can't afford to keep buying it. We have a vet appointment scheduled for him for next Friday to make sure that there is nothing physically wrong with him. We can't really afford a behavior expert for him so if the vet can't help us we will have to find him a new single cat home which we would hate to do because we love him. Is there anything else we can try to stop him from spraying without keeping him locked in the den all the time???? Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks in advance.

Everyone is neutered and spayed and so far Tuffy is the only one spraying and we want to solve this before the other 2 males decide to start to copy him.

 

[ln6271]

Do you think he would tolerate a diaper? I know that might sound nutty, but I have used kitty diapers on a few of my kitties in their later years. The ones I use are made of cloth (so they're machine washable) and have a tail hole and only catch the urine (the kitty can poop normally in the litter box).

 

[fizzgig]

Yea I actually was just looking into those and we will probably try them if the vet doesn't find anything, only down side is that means that Tuffy will have to continue to keep him locked up in the den when no one is home, our eventual goal is for everyone to get along well enough that they can all roam around the house together unsupervised while people are at work.