Trouble in Kitten Paradise
October 2, 2011 9:27 PM   Subscribe

Kitten help needed: Our 3 month old kitten has started peeing in our large round chair. He doesn't pee anywhere else, and this just started three days ago. Why is he doing this? Any tips for getting him to stop? Thanks in advance for your help.
posted by Equiprimordial to Pets & Animals (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Take him to the vet to have him checked out. Make sure his litter box is clean. have you changed his litter to a different brand? If so, he may not like it. Has anything else changed?
posted by TheBones at 9:38 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


A bunch of people are going to tell you to take him to the vet, and that's good advice. There is the possibility of a UTI. You can also add a litter box.

But in my experience, cats just really like peeing in papasan-type chairs. Don't ask me why. Cat's are weird.

I'd get rid of the chair or put in it in a closed room.
posted by dchrssyr at 9:43 PM on October 2, 2011


If you can take the cover off the cushion, do so, clean everything thoroughly, put a big trashbag over the cushion, and then the cover back on OVER the trashbag over the cushion. This does two things -- it protects the cushion from pee (much harder to clean than a cover that can often be thrown in the washer) and the crinkling noise frequently startles the heck out of the cat when he lands on it, so he decamps. You can still use the chair while retraining the cat (although you'll crinkle when you sit down) and it doesn't look weird in the room.

Another alternative is putting aluminum foil or a trash bag ON the chair where he's most likely to land, if it's too big to cover the whole. Again, the crinklies are startling.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:47 PM on October 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


Yeah- the only thing my cats have peed on inappropriately in my 8 years of cat ownership was...my big round papasan chair. I cleaned the hell out of it with Nature's Miracle, bought a new cover and still met with infuriating infrequent disaster unless I put stuff in the chair (aluminum foil worked nicely) to make sure they couldn't or didn't want to access it, and then I couldn't sit it in without hassle. I eventually gave up and tossed it.

On preview, I wish I'd had Eyebrows McGee around because that plastic bag INSIDE the cover idea sounds really good.
posted by charmedimsure at 10:06 PM on October 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


I am appalled to find a question about a kitten with no pictures of said kitten. Also, as long as the kitten cam smell the chair, the chair = bathroom to him, so that's another reason to scrub, scrub, scrub immediately. Try changing out your litter entirely first, not just scooping the existing stuff, and see if that helps before you take on a vet bill.
posted by litnerd at 3:35 AM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


You can also try moving the kitten's food onto the chair. Odd, yes, but cats are smart enough (usually) not to urinate on their breakfast.
posted by Mrs. Rattery at 4:16 AM on October 3, 2011


You might want to invest in a twin sized waterproof mattress pad and put that inside of the cushion cover. We have a kitten who came with the charming habit of peeing on the bed and although it was irritating, it became a less catastrophic problem when we knew she wasn't going to ruin our mattress.

For what it's worth, she would pee on it when she didn't like the condition of the litter box or when she was mad at us for being gone too long. We used a squirt bottle when we caught her in the act, and removed access to the bed for a week or two after each incident. Needless to say, we also washed everything in Nature's Miracle thoroughly so nothing smelled like cat pee. She eventually grew out of it for the most part, although she recently did it again after we moved cross country. We considered that one a free-be though, that was a rough.
posted by Kimberly at 4:27 AM on October 3, 2011


Has the kitten been neutered yet? I had a similar problem with one of my cats when he was bitty, and it stopped when I had him neutered. If you're waiting for the 4-6 month age, I believe the guideline now is that a cat can be safely neutered/spayed when s/he reaches 2lbs. Of course, you'll also want to follow everyone's advice about cleaning the chair, because he will continue to go there if it smells like the litter box.
posted by catwoman429 at 5:59 AM on October 3, 2011


Is the chair something that can be vigorously cleaned? I have a (cheap) homemade remedy that I can send you if you want that will remove the scent. (As long as it's not leather or vinyl or something)
posted by getawaysticks at 9:26 AM on October 3, 2011


Regardless of the initial reason for the peeing, you MUST use an enzyme cleaner on the chair cushion. Nature's Miracle, Anti-Icky-Poo, Urine-Off, or something along those lines. Just make sure the bottle says "enzyme" on it somewhere and it will probably work. Spray or pour it onto the peed-on area, leave for 10 minutes or so, then blot with paper towels. Let air-dry, preferably somewhere the kitten can't get to it (if possible, otherwise you will have to do the trash bag thing).

Basically, cats can smell things (especially pee and other "biological" scents) much more acutely than we can. This is why the enzyme cleaner is necessary: other stuff (soap, vinegar, etc.) might remove enough stink so that WE can't smell it, but cats still can until the stuff is broken down by enzymes, etc. And when they smell the "faint" pee odor they're going to be all, "okay time to go refresh that spot!" It's like teenagers re-spraying their tags on bathroom walls when they start to fade, and it's instinctual so you need to short-circuit the thing prompting the instinct.

Also, while I am sure you will take kitten to the vet, etc., just be aware that cats in general seem to like to pee on soft things (reminds them of sandy ground, most likely). So it's up to you to make the litterbox the most attractive pee spot in the house, which might mean anything from looking at preferred locations to changing the litter to removing (or adding, if you have a privacy-oriented kitty) a litterbox hood or cover. Also look for things that might be scaring the kitten near the litterbox, because it could be that he feels too insecure there to use it. Finally, if you have a large residence, a 3 month old kitten is still very young and might feel overwhelmed by the space -- you may want to, for instance, make sure that there is a box on each floor of a multi-story home or at both ends of a long/large floorplan.
posted by aecorwin at 11:43 PM on October 3, 2011


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