How can I discourage my cat from urinating outside his litter tray?

September 26, 2017 7:31 AM

How can I discourage my cat from urinating outside his litter tray?

He had a UTI, he has seen two separate vets and is now on antibiotics, but he is STILL urinating outside his litter tray, for example
a) on the kitchen floor;
b) in a cardboard box in the loungeroom.

It's gotten to the point that I am keeping him cooped up in the laundry to cut down on clean-up, which makes him miserable.

posted by Murderbot to Pets & Animals (11 answers total)

I am dealing with this exact issue. I have two suggestions.

Cat Attract litter. It hasn't solved the problem 100%, but it's definitely made it better. My cat wasn't peeing in the litterbox at all before I started using this. Now she's missing once every few days. The Cat Attract litter also comes with a booklet with suggestions for dealing with this.

Puppy training pads. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for these. They are not pretty to have around the house and they don't solve the problem, but they certainly make clean-up easier.
posted by FencingGal at 7:47 AM on September 26, 2017 [5 favorites]

Ditto FencingGal on the CatAttract litter and the puppy pads. Have you talked to the vet about putting the cat on the UTI/blockage prevention food? We just did that for our cat and I'm hoping it will help going forward.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:54 AM on September 26, 2017

Yes to both the above suggestions. Another thing: Sometimes if a cat has had a bad time with a particular litterbox (pain from a UTI, for example, or getting into a territorial fight with another cat over it, or whatever) they may get spooked about using that box but be perfectly willing to use a new box set up somewhere else. Which can be annoying short-term, especially if you have limited space, but maybe less annoying than random peeing. Sometimes after enough time has passed (possibly on the order of months vs. weeks) the cat will forget that they're on strike against the old location and you can put a box there again and transition them back to it.

Long shot: if it's an older cat, mobility issues could potentially be a problem as well, and you might try a box with lower sides. (Which makes it easier to pee over those sides, alas, so again, puppy pads are a godsend.

Also, if he's returning to the same spots, you may have to do some serious deep cleaning of those particular spots, temporarily put something there to block his access to them, and/or spray with anti-peeing spray stuff, to break him of that habit. I'd do that at the same time you give him a shiny new box in a new location, full of Cat Attract, and see how far that gets you.
posted by Stacey at 7:57 AM on September 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: ThePinkSuperhero: I ordered Hill's Prescription Diet C/D Multi Care Stress Adult Cat Food[1] online a while ago, it just arrived today.

[1] "Nutritionists & veterinarians developed Hill's Prescription Diet c/d Multicare Stress Feline clinical nutrition specially formulated to support your cat's urinary health while also helping to manage stress. In fact, c/d Multicare is clinically tested nutrition to lower the recurrence of most common urinary signs by 89%."
posted by Murderbot at 7:58 AM on September 26, 2017

Another thing: Sometimes if a cat has had a bad time with a particular litterbox (pain from a UTI, for example, or getting into a territorial fight with another cat over it, or whatever) they may get spooked about using that box but be perfectly willing to use a new box set up somewhere else.

Agreeing with this very hard. My cat had a urinary blockage and after surgery would still get UTIs about once a year. He would try to pee in the tub or on a blanket or a bed, but he wanted his litter box. He was just afraid of it. Things that worked:

- Setting up another littler box. This wasn't permanent and once he was better, he went back to using the original exclusively.
- Taking the cover off his original box. I eventually switched to a litter box without a cover, and he likes that way more.
posted by gladly at 8:19 AM on September 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

Everyone who suggested Cat Attract litter is extremely correct. I can't recommend it enough. A brand-new box in the old litter box spot, plus a second brand-new box elsewhere, can be of help. I suggest being very proactive now, because if he gets used to going places other than the box, it can be trickier to entice him back.

I lived with a cat with serious Pee Issues and here is the recipe I honed to deal with clean-up. Spot-test fabrics to be safe, but this cat peed on literally every possible surface and none of the (many, MANY) fabric types I cleaned with it got bleached or damaged. This worked better than the enzyme sprays / Nature's Miracle-type solutions, for me.

- Preferably while the spot is still wet, cover area with a thick layer of baking soda. (If it's dried, that's fine too)
- In a glass measuring cup, mix 1/8c liquid dish detergent (Dawn or similar) and 1/8c hydrogen peroxide (standard OTC 3%). Fill measuring cup to top with hot water and mix. Pour solution over baking soda to saturate, and rub the paste into the fabric.
- Let dry completely, in the sunshine if you can. When dry, remove powder with a stiff brush and/or vacuum.
posted by halation at 8:45 AM on September 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

Place litterboxes in the spots where he is currently peeing and, if he uses them, gradually move them to the spot where you want the box to be.

Also nth-ing Cat Attract. It's a little pricey so you can sprinkle it on top of regular litter to save on it.

But really - my family's cat is an inveterate rogue pee-er and moving her box to her new pee spots (and eventually back) is the ONLY thing that works consistently.
posted by capricorn at 8:56 AM on September 26, 2017

He may need a new litter box. I would start there first.
posted by Hermione Granger at 10:01 AM on September 26, 2017

We have a cat with pee issues & through trial and error, worked out that there were a few factors at play. Once we made these changes, the cat started peeing where she was supposed to again:

1) Stress. A stressed cat = a cat with basic urine. Feline urine pH should be less than 7. Basic urine = bladder irritation and in some cases, struvite crystals. Ouch! Solution: reduce stress by adding more vertical territory (cat trees, window sill perches), adding another litterbox (experiment with sizes, depths, covered vs uncovered, etc.), and putting the cat on a small dose of transdermal prozac (this did *wonders* - within 24 hours there was a 90% improvement in out-of-the-box peeing).

2) Food. Solution: dry food can be the devil... Some cats will never drink enough water to stay hydrated. Feeding a 100% canned food diet helped SO much. We give 1 cat of Fussie Cat shredded chicken twice a day.

3) Water. High pH water, or water with a high mineral content, can aggravate a cat with FLUTD. Our municipal water was really high in calcium and had a pH of 9+! When we switched out her water bowl refills from tap to reverse osmosis bottled water, she was visibly relieved.

You'll also need to thoroughly clean up any previous favored pee spots - our vet suggested a cleaner called KOE (Kennel Odor Eliminator). It's what his clinic uses and let me tell you, it smells pristine in that office! It's not cheap, but you can purchase a gallon on Amazon that goes a long way. You can use it at 100% strength for an initial application, as well as diluting it into mop water, laundry, etc. It works better than anything else we've ever tried (vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, Dawn, Nature's Miracle, baking soda, salt, bleach, Oxine, etc.).
posted by muirne81 at 1:24 PM on September 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also - if you've tried all of the above, are up for doing your own pH testing and find that your cat's urine is too basic, you can reduce the urine pH by mixing tiny amounts (1/8 tsp) L-methionine in their meals. Essentially, you're making prescription urinary tract food. It goes without saying that you should only do this under your vet's supervision - more methionine is not better; too much will cause very serious health issues. Do not be tempted to use Vitamin C to acidify your cat's urine; while it will reduce pH in the short term, in the long term it creates a very painful kind of kidney/bladder stone that can only be removed surgically.
posted by muirne81 at 1:30 PM on September 26, 2017

Honestly the best way to make sure your cat's urine is acidic is to feed them food that's mostly protein (which are made of/broken down into amino acids) and water, with very little carbohydrate (they do need a bit of fibre, mostly to keep hairballs moving, but it's best to let them self dose with fresh grass). The prescription diets have a bunch of gloop and carbs in them which directly cause alkaline urine - cats did not evolve to eat grains or a carbohydrate-rich diet and generally do fairly badly on it. A wet food that is mostly meat is a good plan - check the ingredients! a bunch of them have very little meat. In our house we humans are vegans, but our cat gets the most ludicrous hipsterish cat food with hand-drawn illustrations on it, which is pretty much made from meat, water and herbs. If you are totally unable to switch your cat to a wet food, look for one of the all-meat dry foods that are now available. No prescription diet or testing kit is going to be better than the homeostatic mechanisms in a cat's own body.

I agree with other posters who've suggested that your cat is quite likely to be avoiding the litterbox because he was in pain there and so associates it with the pain. Try breaking the association gently. Our cat sometimes gets Weird about the litterbox and has to be reminded to use it by being gently pushed through the flap - once he's in he will generally squat and do his thing, and then breezes out, visibly calmer. In conclusion, cats are weird.

I note that you have not yet paid the tribute and posted a picture of The Pusscat Himself.
posted by Acheman at 7:54 AM on September 27, 2017