cat urinating on bed

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Help please. Our 5 month old purebred Mine Coon kitten, as yet not spayed, has begun to urinate on our bed. The first occasion ocurred when the phone rang in the middle of the night and my husband sprang out of bed, traumatizing both the kitten and me. That was 1 week ago. Since then, she has repeated the behavior, once in the morning and once in the evening, using slightly different areas, both on my husbands side. She is normally friendly, extremely active and well behaved. She does startle easily with unusual or loud noises. Ideas, please. Thanks.

-- Anonymous, January 13, 2000

Answers

Afraid you have a problem now as your cat has begun to associate the bed as a litter box and no matter how much cleaning and disinfecting you do, your cat will be able to smell urine in the area. You may have to ban her from the bedroom at night. You could try adding a litter box into the bedroom, but I tend to think this is an emotional reaction from her rather than her just not being able to find a close litterbox in the night. Vets may be able to give you medication to calm her down but is this really something you want to go on with for her whole life? Banning her from the bedroom would at least keep her away from the pee site. You will have to keep the door closed all the time, however, as she may begin going in the room during the day to "make her comments"! I like the way she is making the comment to your husband for disturbing her by peeing on HIS side of the bed! I hope others have some more useful ideas for you.

-- Anonymous, January 13, 2000

Just to make sure, I'd get your kitten checked out to make sure she doesn't have any urinary tract problems. If she checks out ok, then you'll know her peeing is purely emotional. What kind of litter does she use? Perhaps she actually enjoys the feel of the bed better than her litter? One of my cats enjoys my bathroom rug because its very soft, so I've changed her litter to a much softer kind. She was also on Buspar for a couple of months to eliminate her anxiety. When I took her off the medication, she was fine. The only time she doesn't use her litter box is when I haven't cleaned it as thoroughly as I should, and that's very few times a year.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2000

We had a similiar problem with our cat, Harry. Harry is a solid black, 18 month old Maine Coon Mix (at least that's what the vet says) that ran away from his previous owner and showed up at our doorstep. I managed to track down his owner, only to discover that she was lukewarm about taking Harry back. She said she'd had a baby since she'd gotten Harry and no longer had time for him. It turns out that Harry had been on his own for three months before I found him.

So we kept Harry and are battling to turn him into a happy, satisfied, indoor cat. We also have a wonderful dog who we dearly love. Which gave us some problems to resolve.

When we locked Harry in the house with us all night,Harry and the dog seemed to fight for the small amount of real estate that was available on our bed. All night long the animals moved around. Finally, in the morning, Harry doused the dog's tail, and the goose down comforter underneath it, resulting in a $25 dry cleaning bill. But luckily, no pee soaked into the mattress. During the next week, Harry also peed a couple times on the dog's bed (which is close to our bed).

The vet said that Harry was perfectly healthy, but that he was probably having problems dealing with his anger. So the vet recommended that we give Harry a sedative. We hated the idea. Harry is a fun, frisky, playful cat. And we like him that way. So we decided to try anything and everything else before we resorted to sedatives.

First we restricted Harry to a smaller area for a few days,letting him "remember" about litter boxes. Then, when he got free run of the house again, we added another litter box to our house--a hooded, extra-giant size model(Harry is extra-giant size himself). We put the litter box in the hallway, just outside our bedroom.

Harry really has taken to it. Sometimes I think he just likes to go in and dig for fun. We clean it at least once a day, usually right after he uses it. We don't want to give him any excuses for not using it.

We also bought a small cat bed for Harry and put it in our bedroom. So now everybody sleeps in their own bed, cat, dog, humans. And I think Harry prefers his own bed to ours. At first I gave him a treat to get into it, but now he chooses to sleep in it even in the middle of the day.

But just to be on the safe side, we bought a third litter box of the same extra-giant sized model and put it downstairs, behind a big potted tree in the living room. Maybe it's crazy to have three litter boxes for one cat, but we haven't had an accident since we took all these precautions. We got a blacklight and checked everywhere just to be sure. And we haven't had to resort to drugs.

We also make sure now that we make time every day to play exclusively with Harry. And it seems as if Harry is less annoyed with his canine brother now.

Good luck. I hope you find a solution that works for you.

-Sue W

-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000


You just described very typical urinary tract infection symptoms. Get the cat to a vet and start feeding it the "special diet" types of cat food. The "special diet" cat food costs no more.

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000

I had this happen once, it was because she was startled. I had a neighbor peek in on her when I was at work, she was on our bed and got scared. Anyhow to be sure, I took her in and had her checked out. (She was 6 months) She was fine, but it was "get fixed time"! When they get close to their time to go in heat, many things can cause them to urinate in out of the ordinary places. In the meantime I kept her out of my room and there has never been another problem! Also don't move her box around. That can cause it too. Because of the age I doubt it's anything permanent or psychological. I know by now you probably have it solved, but maybe this can help someone else out. First thing to do when something "odd" happens with kitty is DON'T panic, chances are it's nothing. Maine Coons are very hardy.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2000


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