She gets into my closets and sprays my clothes, pees on wall corners, and on the cabinets. She has a litter box that we keep the door open to it and everything, but she never uses it. I've tried cleaning out the cat box and using a smaller rock type of litter all to no avail. My whole house now smells like cat pee (yes I clean it up the second I realize there's pee there) and I'm sick of not being able to invite my friends over because of my cats' problem. It's getting to the point if I can't get her to stop I'll have no choice but to put her in the shelter. This isn't technically my home (I rent) and my landlord isn't to happy on how the house smells he's been telling me I need to get rid of the cat. She's been fixed, but not declawed. She's been a pain in the butt since the day I got her about four months ago. I've taken her to the vet and she has gotten a clean bill of health. I've also taken her to a animal behaviorist which didn't work either.
Anonymous2014-03-29T23:09:34Z
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get the smell of pee out of your house first of all or she will never learn. she thinks that whole house is her because of the smell. once the smell is gone that when you can start over teaching her. but it'll take time. just like a kitten show her the box , put her in it, you might have to grab her paws and rub them in the litter box. put her poop in the box! let her smell it. make her potty environment very private put another box privately in a room she likes, like the closet. pick up all you cloths so she can't have access to them! that will help her a lot. if you see her looking to go pee put her in litter box. praise her when she pees in the box. if she poops outside the litter box clean it up asap and put it in her litter box and show her. cats don't like citrus. rub some lemon juice/ citrus juice on your cabinets and walls. until she learns to stop spraying. and entertain her more often. she might be stressed with boredom or something she's missing. hope I've helped! id hate for you to send her to a shelter.
My male did the same thing for a loong time, the vet suggested stress relieving medication, too expensive, so we got hime a scented collar, after a while he just stopped... he was just really stressed at the time.
So she got checked out for possible UTI problems? You can get meds at the vet that will change her behavior and stop the peeing. Ask him for it. It is fluoxetine.
Cats are very sensitive. You think she’s “a pain in the butt” and she probably has a low opinion of you as well. Is she an indoors/outdoors cat or you keep her indoors and she cannot run away before you start amputating her!!
Maybe you have a psychosomatic boyfriend or your landlord is “one of those” sneaking into your house when you’re not home, spraying his own pee everywhere to blame the cat so you get rid of it. I would not be the first time I hear about human males spraying their pee to make their girlfriend, wife, tenant to get rid of the cat. You should have a clause in your tenant’s contract about pets. They're either allowed or not. When allowed, you often have to give a deposit for any damage they can do.
On her own, a spayed female will only spray when being challenged for territory (or if they’re scared or upset). I got that issue once until I wised up and realized it was a male neighbors’ cat sneaking in my house and spraying the place…It’s weird having an orange Mackerel tabby cat and suddenly you’re looking at a grey one in your kitchen eating your cat food! I got rid of the cat door.
In 18.5 years, my female cat peed twice outside her litter box, on the white paper towel I provided for her, to let me know she was peeing pink (blood in the urine = emergency visit to the vet), once on her cat scratcher to let me know to stop buying those stupid things and once under the Christmas tree because she was used to mark her territory on my pine trees outside so she did the same when I brought a real tree in my house (never again, plus those are full of bugs and spiders).
Once, a strong cat pee smell was really coming from sport shoes from my son who’s a runner… I blasted those with a water pressure machine.
Also…how young was your cat when she was given away? I don’t know about “smaller rock type” litter (are you talking about crystals? That sounds like something painful to sit in). Make sure to not use anything organic made with corn as most cats won’t pee/poo in corn (they consider that food).
I use Fresh Step Scoopable Unscented Odor Shield (took me a while to find the right litter for my current cat litter box). I use a lot (4 inches for her big pee balls in the big litter box) and 1.5 inches for her poo in her smaller poo litter box. My current cat does not poo where she pees and vice-versa…she’s very clean. She buries everything and nothing smells. I’m allergic to litter dust (or any other dust) but that one is easy to scoop up while I hold my breath for a few seconds. The odors are eliminated as they use carbon and plants extracts and it’s free of perfumes and dyes. Cats’ sense of smell is 15 times more developed than humans so you don’t want to subject them to perfumes.
Be aware that some nincompoop people will give away kittens as soon as they can eat kitten food (like 5 or 6 weeks old) and survive without their mother’s milk BEFORE they are taught how to use the litter box…which is a nasty affair for a couple of days (hopefully, you can put the litter box outside or in a room with a window and a big fan) when the mother craps nasty smelling diarrhea without burring it to direct her kittens to the litter box and make them understand she won’t lick their butt anymore as they're now eating kitten food. It’s like when you have a baby and you’re breastfeeding…changing the diaper is smelling and looking like yellow mustard and then you introduce solid food when your baby is six months old, like applesauce or a few pieces of smashed banana with yogurt and suddenly HELLO, your baby’s diapers smell like crap!! And now, no way your husband is going to change a diaper anymore!
You still feel lucky you did not have to deal with crappy smelly diapers for six months because you were breastfeeding.
If your cat has been a “pain in the butt since the day you got her”, maybe she never learned how to properly use a litter box and you never taught her. Plus you’re the kind of person who “clean it up the second you realize there’s pee” so obviously being clueless about how cats NEED smell (poo/pee) to learn proper behavior.
My current cat will not even use either of her litter boxes if I forget to re-add a cup of used litter (no poo/pee, just used) when I clean up the whole thing once a month, as she needs the smell to know where to pee/poo. Once, I rushed out when hearing the garbage truck and forgot to keep a cup of used litter…by the time I came back from the curb, my cat already crapped on the floor like “did you forget something?” so I had to get some disposable gloves and pick up the poo in a paper towel and get it around the litter boxes and burry it in the poo box and then my cat resumed using her litter boxes properly.
Really, you might have to teach your cat how to use a litter box if she was not provided with that teaching from her mother. I won’t go into details but it’s a nasty endeavor, as you have to pee/poo in front of your cat, in her litter box, without burying anything. If you do that on your deck, outside, because of the smell, make sure the neighbors cannot see you.
You do the same with your kids…you pee/poo in front of them so they imitate you and then they can use the toilet and don’t need diapers anymore.