Cat is peeing on every rug and dog bed in the house. Help.

October 9, 2024 7:22 AM

Feel free to browse my question history about my cat's history, but here's the current story: I have 2 male sibling cats that are 11 years old. Until recently, they both were diligent litter box users (one cat had a brief period of peeing in the bathtub, but this is about the other cat). My partner and his dog and 13 year old male cat moved in with me in December (his older diabetic cat from a previous post was diagnosed with cancer and sadly didn't make it to the move). The cat intros went well, but this summer, one of my cats, Miles, started peeing on our bathmat. A month or so after that he started peeing on one rug. Now it's multiple rugs, the dog bed, basically anything soft on the ground. He's also lost some weight but otherwise is behaving normally. He's been to the vet a LOT and other than possible mild IBS, they can't find anything wrong. More details inside.

We have 3 litter boxes - 2 robots and a standard box - prior to the other cat moving in I only had 1 robot for my 2 and they were fine, fwiw. Mr. Miles Pee-Pants does use all 3 boxes with no obvious issues. My two cats and boyfriends cat have not become best friends, but they co-exist with no obvious signs of stress or turmoil. We have feliway diffusors up, and diligently clean all pee spots with Nature's Miracle as soon (and if) we discover them.

When Miles first started losing weight, we did a ton of tests at the vet including bloodwork, x-rays, urinalysis, and ultrasounds. Other than a possible diagnosis of maybe mild IBS, they can't find anything wrong with him. We put him on a hypoallergenic food and did a round of steroids with mild results. The weight loss seems to ebb and flow but has never fully resolved.

Other note - some of the rugs are new. My dog is a 15 year old large breed who is having issues on our hardwood floors, so we've been adding rugs to the main areas of the house where he walks. The living room always had a rug, which Miles has never peed on. We've added one more area rug and a few runners. There have always been dog beds in the house and he never peed on those until recently either. If I could just pull up the rugs, I would, but I cannot while my senior pup is still with us.

I'm absolutely at my wits end. My very small house always reeks of pee. I keep having to buy new dog beds, which for a 100+ pound senior dog, isn't cheap, and I'm worried about Mr. Pee-Pants health. I plan to take him back to the vet for the umpteenth time and may consider a different vet. In the meantime, any tips to preserve my sanity and my flooring? Any health things I should be asking about that maybe the vet or I haven't thought of?

posted by tryniti to Pets & Animals (7 answers total)

I think the first thing is to recognize that your elder cat isn't co-existing with the new pets very well and is stressed, even if you're not seeing other displays, this is very much a symptom of stress. We had a similar thing happen to our 15 yr old cat during the pandemic (so he would have been 11), we got a new cat and while things seemed ok, between the new addition and the growing feral community across the street that would hangout in our yard, etc. he went over the edge. Destroyed so many canvas lunch boxes of my husbands, backpacks, bath mats, towels left on the floor, dark corners of closets and bedrooms. Tried every enzyme cleaner on the market with mixed results, we ended up stepping up from a little bissell cleaner to something bigger and now have baby gates on carpeted rooms he was hitting hard. Our vet told us that even if you can't smell it, they can so once something's been hit, it now seems like a natural place to repeatedly pee. We have 3 litter boxes for 2 cats spread out across the house. He's seen a variety of vets at our facility over the years, and while he's got standard age related things, there's no infection, etc. He is on a kidney care diet at this point. Things have gotten better in part b/c he's gotten older and just sleeps most of the time and b/c we are vigilant about picking things up, like bath mats etc. so they aren't targets. Also I think it's just quieter for most of the time these days so he has a more peaceful environment, the kids are out of the house during the day and he has found a good routine of sleeping on my son's bed in the dark cavelike room. But if it was still going at the rate we were dealing with a couple years ago, I might look at diapers. Sorry you are dealing with this, it's utterly miserable.
posted by snowymorninblues at 8:06 AM on October 9 [4 favorites]

Your cats hate the dog and everything new in their environment. The peeing is them marking territory AND a stress response (who is this intruder!). It's NOT illness.

Clearly, your cats are NOT interested in co-existing with the dog, despite your best intentions.
posted by kschang at 9:41 AM on October 9 [5 favorites]

Unfortunately I agree with the other commenters that given that no physical issues have been identified and there have been several major changes in kitty's environment in the last year, it seems very likely that the peeing is purely emotional/psychological. Have you considered trying something like Feliway or other calming products? I had a cat who peed and pooped right outside of the litter box for most of his life and there was never a medical reason. Feliway did seem to help him do it less often (though not never). He also seemed to benefit from a Thundershirt.
posted by anotheraccount at 9:58 AM on October 9

My cat's hyperthyroid issue was not clinically in the range that they normally positively diagnose it, but our vet felt it was a precursor to more serious issues. We were having a similar peeing everywhere problem that has largely subsided since we started him on thyroid meds (low dose, once a day). He's also gained back a healthy pound or two and is much more comfortable.

While I agree that the move and new stuff around the house points to stress, you might follow up with your vet about thyroid just below the threshold, just to rule it out as a compounding factor.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 11:00 AM on October 9

Ugh, my experience says this will not get better with time. My experience ALSO says that you will never get the smell lout of certain items. I had this issue (twice) and it didn't end well for anyone. I am so sorry, you have ALL of my sympathy.
posted by tristeza at 11:43 AM on October 9

Okay, some tips to preserve your sanity:

Get waterproof dog bed covers ASAP. Something like this. There are also special senior dog beds with a waterproof inner layer (usually meant to mitigate the canine occupant's accidents), but covering your existing dog beds will be sufficient for now and certainly much cheaper than buying new beds. Get two covers per bed so you don't need to wait for the laundry. The covers I linked are the prettier option. You could choose to go with toddler-sized waterproof mattress covers instead. IKEA sells these in all different sizes, starting at about $12. You might want to get a couple of those for the human beds, because it's a small miracle that those are being spared so far.

Rolling up the rugs and putting them into storage will give you a much better chance at fixing the problem. I think I'd try to get a handful of washable anti-slip bathmats and just use those instead of rugs (for now). They don't necessarily look like bathmats these days.

For a more permanent option (and one even more likely to produce a housetrained cat), you could go with rubber mats. A hardware store would have lots of options there, and some can be cut to size so you can create a path for your senior dog. Search for "senior anti-slip rubber mat" for about a billion options. Some people use foam play tiles to help older dogs get around, either stuck together, or just single tiles attached to the floor with double-sided tape. Tesa also sells anti-slip tape that helped one of my senior dogs navigate stairs, and you could stick that on the hardwood floor in troublesome spots. It's not invisible, but close.

Are you making sure your senior's claws are trimmed and the fur between his pads is as short as possible? That helps a lot with slipping. If you've done all that and you have an agreeable dog, there's a fairly great product for canine seniors: non-skid socks. I used those for my senior, and they were very efficient (as well as adorable). She didn't like them much, but I've heard about dogs being really excited to have the run of the house again.

So there were six months of incident-free coexisting between the move and the accidents, right? That's a long time for Miles to then get so stressed, but it is possible. Have you tried creating vertical space and lots of caves so all the pets can feel safe? Do you really not perceive any tension at all? Do all pets sleep in each other's vicinity, do they play, do they eat?

I'm curious: Does Miles use the litterboxes (to pee) at all? Sometimes, animals just get stuck. They do a thing (like peeing on a bathmat) once, and then forget that other options exist. Maybe try keeping Miles in a room away from all other pets for a day or so, with no soft surfaces apart from his own bed (and this bed high up on furniture). See if he uses the litterbox. If he does, let him have one more room (still devoid of soft surfaces). Basically, slowly reintroduce him to the house, making the litterbox the only logical option at all points and going a step back if there's accidents.

It's possible that Miles needs his own litterbox, and you might be able to make that work by putting his in a closet or little-used bathroom, then letting only him in and out of there. Probably won't work unless you're home a lot and only if he's vocal enough to get your attention. The high-tech version, of course, would be a cat flap that opens to his collar, giving him access to a private bathroom.

You could also just accept it. Obviously, don't live in a urine-soaked house. But you could accept that this cat wants to pee on soft things, and decide to put a fluffy towel out for him to use (either on tile, or on plastic). Always leave it in the same spot, and you might find he'll only want to use this towel. That wouldn't be the worst option, in my opinion, especially if his towel toilet is right next to the washer.

In any case, this sounds really stressful. Stay strong. The weird thing about house training is that adjusting little things can suddenly solve the problem.
posted by toucan at 12:09 PM on October 9 [1 favorite]

Our two cats shared one litterbox for many years with zero issues. A few years ago, one or both of them (we never figured out the culprit) started peeing on towels, beds, etc. We started adding more litterboxes, and when we got up to six, the peeing mostly stopped. We still have to be diligent about keeping blankets, towels, etc off the floor. We were eventually able to cut down to four litterboxes (two in each of two bathrooms).

I don’t know if adding more litterboxes will help, or if you even have room for more, but it’s a relatively inexpensive thing to try and see if it helps. You might also want to see if there’s a way to place a litterbox somewhere that only the pee culprit can access, in case he is uncomfortable using the ones you have with the other animals around.
posted by maleficent at 12:10 PM on October 9