Cat peeing on the bed - help!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The Dope seems to be the place to go for pet behavioural advice, so here goes.

I have three cats. One (Ghost) is a twelve year old girl, who was abused as a kitten. I got her age six months from a shelter and she’s happy in her own wee way, but she’s very skittish and afraid of people, and you can’t pick her up. The other two (Jack and Meg) are seven-year old brother and sister, got them as tiny kittens, and they’re perfectly normal.

The cats are indoors cats. I live in a large flat, and the cats are generally banned from the bedroom. The door is kept shut.

Two and a half years ago I threw my husband out, and there was no noticeable change in the cats’ behaviour.

Last summer I started seeing someone, and the third or fourth time he stayed over at mine, I’d accidentally shut Ghost in the bedroom all day. This was not the first time this has happened, but there had never been any problem before (the poor entombed cat would just run very, very quickly to the litter tray on being set free!). But on this occasion when we went to go to bed, there was a wet puddle right in the middle of the bed.

I put it down to being my fault for shutting her in, got the bedding from the spare room and didn’t think any more about it. But then it happened another three times - this time without the cat having been shut in the bedroom. Twice in the morning when I was on my own, and once in the evening when he was there too. On these occasions she can only have been in the room for two minutes, and seemingly deliberately sneaked into the bedroom just to pee on the bed.

I started to completely banish the cats from the bedroom (can be tricky - they’re quick and sneaky!), the problem didn’t reappear, so gradually I became less watchful. Now it’s happened again, twice in the space of a week. There is no correllation with when the litter tray was last completely cleaned out, so I don’t think it’s a protest at a whiffy litter tray. At first I thought it was pure jealousy of the boyfriend, but he wasn’t there when it happened this week.

Any theories? Any suggestions to stop it happening again? (Apart from the very obvious “don’t let them in the bedroom”)?

2

One a cat has peed someplace, unless you get every trace of pee smell out of the thing, the peeing will reoccur even if the thing that initially prompted the behavior doesn’t.

Have you treated your mattress and sheets with an ezyme formula specially formulated to eliminate cat pee? (In the US we have something called “Nature’s Miracle” available at pet stores). You should spot treat the mattress/bedding/covers/mattress pad (every item that was wetted with pee), machine wash everything you can with a cup of enzyme cleaner in the wash water, AND flip the mattress so the smell spot is no longer facing up.

3

I had a cat that suddenly began to pee on our bed. The cat turned out to have a very treatable cystitis like condition. Our vet suggested that perhaps she was trying to alert us to the fact that she wasn’t well. I’m a bit cynical about these kind of theories but ya never know. The cat never piddled on our bed after treatment.

4

Its not that she was trying to “tell you” anything. Cats have an instinct to avoid accumulating their waste in one spot when they are sick. Bladder infections and such like often lead to inappropriate peeing, also because peeing is painful and the cats associate the pain with the litter box. So the peeing-outside-the-box behavior, should signal you, the owner, that the cat might not be well. Oftentimes moving the litter box, or getting a new, different one, will alleviate the problem while the cat is being treated.

It’s never a bad idea to have a cat who pees inapparopriately checked out by a vet.

5

Thanks for both of those pieces of advice. I’d tried my best about the smell - even throwing the downie out. The second time this week was on a complete set of brand new bedding (thankfully I’d included a water-resistant mattress protector in my new bedding shopping!). I will try and track down Nature’s Miracle or something like it.

The theory that she’s trying to tell me something is intriguing. When Jack (boy cat) was about six months old he had a blocked urethra and alerted me to it by squatting down and trying to pee - in the middle of a newspaper I was reading on the kitchen table. Clever cat. Maybe Ghost is doing something similar. But the thought of trying to get her to a vet… yikes.

6

While you’re trying to figure out why she’s doing this you should get yourself a vinyl mattress cover because the more she pees the harder it will be to get the smell out. And the more it smells like pee, the more likely it will be that she will pee there again.

7

I’d first take her to a vet to rule anything out. My experience with cats peeing inappropriately has always turned out to be medical problems with the cat. Some can be fixed easily, like UTI’s, but my one cat had bladder cancer. :frowning:

Then, Nature’s Miracle or other enzymatic cleaner to eliminate the odor.

I have found a site that is pretty thorough in regards to cat pee problems: The Litter Box From Your Cat’s Point of View

8

This is one of the reasons that I currently do not own any pets.

9

It’s preferable that you not post in threads asking for advice if you don’t have anything useful and/or relevant to contribute. This isn’t full-scale threadshitting, but it’s definitely in that neighborhood.

Thanks,

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

10

This. Happened to us with a beloved 14-year old female Siamese mix.

11

If after checking out your cat at the vets and finding no problems (at 12yo you may be looking at the beginnings of chronic kidney failure), the best technique I’ve found to stopping kitty from ever peeing on the bed again is to place a litter box right on the spot where kitty peed, then moving it slowly over the course of weeks to where you want kitty to go. And yes, that mean plopping a litter box right in the middle of the bed.

Basically, you place a clean (preferably new) litter box with fresh litter right over the pee spot and let your cats have access to the bedroom. When you go to sleep, obviously, you remove the litter box. Replace it to the spot upon waking up though. After a few days, when you see that the cats have actually used the litter box, start moving it every day about a foot or so towards the desired final resting spot. When you get to the edge of the bed, put a something at the same height in front of it (boxes work well) so kitty can get into the litter box. The next day put it on the box itself and put a half height box in front of it, then the day after that put it on the half height box, then the next day on the floor.

Eventually, once you get to the final kitty bathroom spot, your kitty will no longer associate the bed with peeing. You will however, like other folks have mentioned, need to clean the urine out of the mattress as much as possible to completely prevent any kitty “interest” in the spot. Woolite carpet cleaner or Spot Shot works pretty darn well – they do a good job at breaking down the urea products.

12

Just about every time we’ve had a cat pee outside the litter box, it was either because the cat was so new that it didn’t know where the box was, or because the cat had a bladder infection. Bladder infections don’t seem to clear up by themselves, but a shot of antibiotic, and occasionally pills, seems to clear things up nicely.

In fact, any time a pet drastically changes its behavior, a checkup might solve things VERY quickly.

13

In my experience, any kind of earthshaking change (in a cat’s eye) may bring on a brief episode of peeing on the bed, or otherwise outside the box. Back in late February, we had just moved, and two of our three cats had died in the previous few weeks. The remaining cat peed copiously on the bed just once–and so far has never had a problem again.

Also, we’ve seen this when we had multiple cats and there were territorial issues. At one time we had four, one of which always spent the night alone in the living room lying on a particular slipcover. After we lost him, we put the slipcover at the foot of the bed not stopping to think this was where one of the others slept–said cat immediately peed a little there, just to make the point. He also never did anything like that again, and was fine until we lost him early this year.

14

My (former) cat did this a few times. One night while reading a good book I sort of absent-mindedly picked at this small thing on my leg (gross, I know, but anyway…), and it bled, so I put a Band-Aid on it and went to bed. When I woke up I realized I had bled quite a bit on the bed. I washed everything, but a few days later, the cat peed right there, on top of the blood stain on the mattress pad. I had a hard time getting the pee out of my comforter because I couldn’t find a washing machine big enough to wash it thoroughly in. I washed it several times, and the pee didn’t totally come out, so I threw it out. Then I sprayed the mattress with something (forget what) and then turned it over so the former spot was on the bottom. After that I tried to remember to keep the bedroom door shut at all times.

Anyway–a few months later I discovered that the same cat had a terrible urinary tract infection, rushed him to the vet, and long story short–a few days later had to put him to sleep. Whether that was connected to the bed peeing I don’t know, but I feel bad that I didn’t notice earlier what might have been his very strong hint that something was wrong.

15

Thanks so much for the advice. I’m managing to keep the cats completely out of the bedroom just now, but I think a trip to the vet for Ghost is the way to go.

I’m going to need a couple of falconry gloves and a fencing outfit to get her into the cat carrier, but I have to agree with the advice here that she is probably unwell to have behaved like this. Bless her wee heart.

16

No idea whether it works, but it looks like something called “Simple Solution” is available where you are, and it might be similar to Nature’s Miracle.

I’ve had excellent results with SCOE10x on a futon mattress with repeated cat pee incidents. I don’t know whether the SCOE people ship internationally, but it is concentrated, so if they do, the shipping costs would be better than for a non-concentrated product. You do have to really soak the site of peeing, and keep it wet for a long time, for it to work, so I’d recommend at least the 13 oz size, which makes a gallon of usable product. (Please note that some SCOE customers really don’t like the product or the company – google “SCOE 10x scam” to see some of that. I tried it anyway and felt it was worth my money, but YMMV, and with international shipping it might not be worth the risk to you.)