Pee-ewww!

June 28, 2007 6:20 AM

After a short but hitherto blameless existence, my cat has started randomly peeing around the house. Help me figure out if it's health or behavioural issues!

She's not quite 12 months old and an only cat (I'd love to have another but our lease won't allow it). She's bright and bored and I keep her indoors while I'm out but she has a lot of toys and treats to help liven things up. There are a bunch of feral neighbourhood cats around that she will occaisionally tangle with when I let her out, but she seems otherwise happy.

For no apparent reason, last month she started yowling and peed in the corner of my office on the floor. I cleaned it up and made sure that her litter box (which is HUGE, by the way) is super fresh and clean. The box is only a room away from where she peed - it's not like she got confused and just went wherever.

And tonight, she repeated the performance in the corner of my bedroom.

Is it a likely health issue that makes her suddenly incontinent, or is it a behavioural/psychological issue? Her water consumption appears to be normal, as does her food intake (although she's gotten to be a a real guts lately - eating so fast in the morning that she's thrown up a few times, but I put that down to one of the feral neighbourhood cats staring at her through the window and making her freak out and eat faster).

I'll take her to a vet this weekend, but opinions would be appreciated. (Yes, you're not vets, or - if you are - you're not my vet etc etc etc. Duly noted) Any ideas?

posted by ninazer0 to pets & animals (12 comments total)

If the pee is motably sticky, it might be diabetes. Does your cat seem to be drinking more water, as well? My g/f's cat did this for about three months before they figured out it wasn't just tha cat being her usual intractable self; once they took her to the vet, it was diagnosed as diabetes.
posted by notsnot at 6:24 AM on June 28, 2007

Does she yowl every time? In that case it could well be a UTI/kidney thing.

The other thing that makes my 2 go in inappropriate places is an imposter cat: there's an un-neutered tom in the area who comes in through the cat door and sprays, and that makes my two (neutered and otherwise fairly well-behaved) much less continent. But if you don't have a cat door it can't be a territorial thing.
posted by handee at 6:25 AM on June 28, 2007

I think it could be a UTI or other problem, so your first line of defense is probably the vet visit.

If she's not sick, here are a few things you can try:
-Add another litter box in another room, maybe a different stye with a different type of litter.
-Clean all the cat pee with an enzyme cleaner. If she can smell her pee she's more likely to go there again. You can also get a black light to look for any spots you might have missed.
-Feliway, kitty pheromones that are supposed to calm the cat. I tried this with no luck, but apparently it helps some people.
-Valium, prescribed by your vet. This is what ultimately helped my cat.
posted by robinpME at 6:35 AM on June 28, 2007

If she's getting into regular tangles with the neighbourhood cats, then it's fairly likely she's stressed. Stress is a major cause of feline idiopathic cystitis. Get her to the vet for a check up as soon as possible, symptoms can escalate. You have just described classic symptoms. This can be cured with antibiotics and if it recurs, vet prescribed antiflammatory drugs can control it.

There are of course many other urinary tract conditions which your vet will check for. Ask your vet to give her diet the once over too as some cat food can cause urinary tract problems.

If it is stress induced cystitis, consider only letting her out whilst you supervise her, to improve her confidence and keep away other cats. You could maybe harness train her and take her for a daily mooch about outside. She's only a year old so may still be adaptable to the harness. Yet again, I'm going to suggest you get your home kitted out with some Feliway diffusers, they contain a synthetic cat facial pheromone, and will make her feel more secure in her own environment, reducing the stress and further incidences of cystitis.

Good luck.
posted by Arqa at 6:46 AM on June 28, 2007

Is your cat spayed? We had this same problem with one of our female cats that wasn't spayed. We took her to the vet, and he said it was either UTI, psychological (would require kitty Valium), or her marking her territory because she was in heat. We tried the medicine for UTI, didn't work. We got her spayed and haven't had a problem since.

Also, definitely get the enzyme cleaners (available cheaply on eBay) and follow the directions. Nothing else will eliminate the odor to her and cause her to re-mark in that area.
posted by drgonzo2k2 at 6:50 AM on June 28, 2007

We dealt with a very similar situation with our older cat. Her age brought some different considerations into play, but ultimately I was surprised to find it wasn't health-related: the rooms she was choosing were only in the front of the house, and the spots she was choosing were only under the windows facing the front lawn. The vet said he was 99% sure it was territorial, and had we seen another cat around lately, maybe one hanging out by the front of the house? (well, yes, now that you mention it)

So, we ran that cat off, and cleaned up with Petzyme, and our kitty went into time-out for a couple of days -- locked in the master bathroom at the back of the house, on the tile floor, where her litterbox lives. When she came out she was just fine, no recurrences.
posted by pineapple at 6:56 AM on June 28, 2007

My six year old cat was doing the same thing. We thought it was behavioral because he was only peeing on MY stuff, and only on particular things that I had placed in a certain area. However, when we took him to the vet, he was diagnosed with a UTI and put on food that minimizes crystal build-up. That seems to have worked, and it's likely that him peeing on my stuff was an attempt to bring my attention to the matter.

So, if yours is doing it in your office rather than a dark unvisited corner of the basement, she might be trying to call your attention to a UTI.
posted by desjardins at 7:14 AM on June 28, 2007

You're lucky she's a female cat, with a male cat I would be much more willing to bet it was FLUTD. That said, yowling + peeing, and peeing right in front of you gives me the impression that it is probably something physical. You need to take her to the vet ASAP for urine & blood work.

Whether it is behavioral or physical, I do recommend picking up some Feliway at your local pet store. My cat, Smacky, had some major urinary tract blockages when he was between 1-2 years old, and he wound up having a sort of fear of the litterbox. I was pretty desperate, so I tried everything including Feliway, and the Feliway really DID seem to make a difference. It basically seems to soothe and calm down cats.

Also, make absolutely sure her litterbox is always clean, and maybe consider getting a second litterbox. Some cats are neurotic about the litterbox - a few will only use one for #1 and another for #2.
posted by tastybrains at 7:44 AM on June 28, 2007

Nthing the idea that it may be a UTI. Or it may be something worse; urea crystals in the bladder. This happened to a cat of mine. She started pissing everywhere for no apparent reason. My girlfriend and I thought his was just her new way of being an enormous pain-the-ass, but after about a month blood started showing up in the urine. The couldn't detect anything unusual until the cat was X-rayed.
posted by lekvar at 1:08 PM on June 28, 2007

When you take her to the vet they're going to take a urine sample. This is because UTI or similar is the obvious physical thing to check for, and I'm sure you guessed already that's what they're going to do.

We went through something similar a year ago with our cat and the thing I found that helped the most was shutting her away from her litter box in the morning before taking her, so there was urine built up for the vet to collect. Her infection was reasonably bad and took a couple of courses of antibiotics so we did the urine collection thing a few times. The days I let her out to pee in the morning she had to stay at the vet all day until her bladder was full again. The one time I thought to keep her inside and away from the cat litter they took the sample right then and she got to come straight home. Much less stressful for the cat.

This assumes your cat is old enough to hold it in for a while. I've noticed this improves as they age (Mandy is 12 now). Yours is a year old so being kept away from the littler box for a few hours is probably OK, but she might not be able to hold on all day. So try and get a morning appointment if you can.

UTIs can be easily treated and you vet will have good ideas about other causes if that's not what it is. Good luck.
posted by shelleycat at 3:55 PM on June 28, 2007

We had the same experience as pineapple. Our cat (a male, though) started peeing in strategic locations around the house, and we couldn't figure out why. After trying several other theories, we just let him be an outdoor cat during the day and keeping him inside after his dinner. No more peeing indoors, except in the cat box. He felt more secure being able to protect the perimeter of the house and yard from other cats. You might have to put up with a cat fight or two at first, though.
posted by ctmf at 5:15 PM on June 28, 2007

Quick followup:

The tests came back negative, so the verdict is behavioural - further supported by the latest twist, which is she will now bring her dinner to where I'm sitting so she can have company when she eats.

We're only letting her outside when supervised now, and I'm on the lookout for the Feliway stuff as well as the Pee-Off spray for the "hotspots".

Thankyou for all the helpful suggestions, guys!
posted by ninazer0 at 8:11 PM on July 2, 2007