I have two cats. One of them is fairly well behaved, and always uses his litter box. The other, a female, has basically been destroying my apartment. She pees in every corner on the carpet, multiple times, and then when those spots get saturated with urine, she starts peeing in other spots along the walls. Also, she won’t cover her poop.
I’ve sprayed the spots heavily with enzyme to reduce the odor. I’ve gotten her spayed. (that may have helped a little). I’ve started just dumping her outside at night. That seems to help some.
I’m about to move to a different apartment with brand new carpeting. I was told it had vinyl floors everywhere but the leasing office was wrong, it has carpeting in the bedroom. I’ve purchased another catbox as there is more room in this apartment for one, there just wasn’t room in the previous one.
I don’t know what to do. All I can think to do is :
a. I can turn her to an animal shelter. This is Georgia. About an 80%-90% chance they kill her - most animal shelters here kill most of the cats as there are far too many.
b. I can kick her outside and keep feeding her. Yes, eventually, animal control might catch her, or she might be run over by a car or killed some other way. But I won’t be directly responsible for her fate.
Frankly I think she will live longer with option b and morally it seems like a less bad outcome.
Find a nonprofit that trains cats and ask or pay them to take her off your hands. What you are contemplating is horribly irresponsible and if she happens to be able to reproduce, that makes it so much worse for society.
You said you bought another catbox - does that mean there was only one in the last apartment? That’s no good - I’ve heard the rule “one per cat, and one extra” but in any case, I don’t think you can expect two cats to use one box. If you only had one box, that was the problem - the other cat had claimed that box, and she didn’t have a place of her own to go.
I think two litter boxes will probably solve your problem. But do keep her off the carpet. Close the door. Confine her to a kennel if you’re not home til she’s trustworthy.
Barring all that, find her a new home. Maybe as a barn cat on a farm.
You’re asking for help so I’m assuming you consider yourself a responsible pet owner. I trust you’ll do the right yhing.
It took me about 10 seconds to find a list of dozens of no-kill shelters in Georgia. This site will actually help you find a shelter or re-home your cat.
You’re not doing well with this cat, and it’s not doing well with you, so rehome it. Go to the no kill shelter and surrender her, pay the fee. If she’s been spayed already someone will take her. Someone whom she’ll match up with better and have a good life with. I think it’s the only reasonable thing to do.
I think you need to at least try to train the cat yourself before you consider a shelter or re-homing.
Get a new large litter box with new litter.
Put it in a quiet area away from the other cat’s litter box and their food.
Keep putting her in it and petting her to make her comfortable.
Show her how to dig in the litter.
Other tips:
Ensure the other cat does not use it.
You can rub some paper towels in the areas where she’s had accidents and put them under the litter to establish her scent on the litter box.
You may want to contain her in the area with her litter box at night or during the day when you are not home.
I once had a cat that dceveloped the problem of not using his box. He peed everywhere, but particularly in the hallway. I tried everthing, odor maskers, special cleansers, always making sure the box was clean. (I had another cat as well, it was well behaved) The vet examined him to be sure there was not a medical issue, and recommended different cleaning products. Finally, while speaking to the vet on the phone about the other cat, I asked him if, in the case of this one, he though euthanasia would be a moral option. He did. After all, I could not give him away, his behavior woulf not change. And I was getting angry and frustrated. So I had the cat put down, although he was otherwise healthy, just mentally disturbed for some reason. As he faded I told him it was not his fault, and asked forgiveness. I buried him in my backyard.
I hope you can find a solution short of that, with all the good suggestions. I wish I could have.
Have you taken the cat to a vet. to be examined for this specific issue, and consulted with the vet. about possible treatments for the behavior even if there’s not a physical problem?
Have you tried multiple cat pans, different styles of cat pans, and also tried using different litter, starting with an unscented version?
Can you just keep the cat out of the room with the carpets, and live with the issue otherwise?
If the answers to the above are yes, yes, and no, I’d try nelliebly’s solution. Though my sister dealt with one cat by Grrr!'s friend’s technique.
Note: The default here is for cats to be inside/outside creatures so this may not be as much as a issue for me as it is for you.
We “inherited” a stray when we both our house. She would use a litter box but also always tries to eat it. After numerous attempts with different types and many chats with the vet we came up with a solution of using puppy training pads, you can buy 100 packs for $10-15. We put them into a corner she was using and blocked off all other spots she was fond of. Now she mostly goes outside but if she’s in at night she will go to there and do her business. we change them out when we see them used. They soak up most of the smell of urine very well. Not as good as a solution as litter but it works for us and our very old cranky cat who is very set in her ways.
We are content with this solution as she has become part of our family and love her dearly.
Is the male neutered? Cats are very sensitive to smells, and new homes, and lots of things.
-Make sure the male is neutered
-Try Feliway if you haven’t
-Talk to your vet about testing the cat for a medical issues (my parents’ cat recently started doing this and had an infection).
-Talk to the vet about meds for stress reduction
-Make sure the “no go” zones for kitty are thoroughly blocked off. They smell good to her now, so she needs to be kept away.
If this all consists of things you aren’t able to do, then, yes, you should hand her over to a no-kill group.
Note that throwing her into the outdoors is not a humane alternative. Unless she was raised outside, the odds of her surviving outside are low and her death won’t be humane.
Anyplace in Georgia I’m familiar with will turn your cat into a flea & tick ranch if you turn her outside. Don’t do that.
Just curious, how do the two cats get along? Fight? Ignore? Groom? If/when they fight, do you try and break it up? Do they eat from the same source or do they have separate bowls?
I use Bayer Advantage whenever I find a flea. The two cats will do all 3, depending on the mood. In a given week they may sleep 10 feet from each other, or groom, or fight. There are usually 1-2 bowls but I am usually too busy to maintain separate food bowls.
If they fight I am usually too busy to break it up but usually I take my favored kitty’s side and help him win the favored spot on the top of the cat tree or whatever.
Both cats regularly demand to be let outside these days. So about 3-4 times a week they spend a few hours outside. Primary risk to they might get run over, although most traffic is low speed (under 10mph) around this area.
If you give it to a shelter, even if they euthanize her, at least she will be warm (and not broiling), pain-free, and fed until she dies.
If you release her into the wild, she will be dealing with weather (heat, cold, rain), most likely starving, and very likely to get ill or in an accident. Yes, she might live longer but it’s going to be a miserable painful existence.
Death is not necessarily the worst thing that can happen to an animal.
Now, I had a cat that started peeing outside of her box. We weren’t sure why, just that there wasn’t a physical problem (you have talked to your vet about this, right?) We ended up with a sort of compromise - I bought pee pads (you can get them for babies, for puppies and for old people), and put them where she was most likely to go. She started using those, and we just threw them away as they got dirty, but she never peed anywhere else as long as those were available. She did use the litter for pooping.
The poop thing might be a dominance issue. In clowders, the top kitty builds a little hill and poops on it, while all the others bury their poop. That’s why we can litter train our cats so easily, because most of them see us as the top cat, so they instinctively bury their poop in the litter we provide.
Also, it seems like nearly every episode of “My Cat From Hell”, the answer is to provide places where the cat can climb up. So you might try a cat tower if you don’t have one.
This is true; and in addition: a cat not raised as an outdoor or indoor-outdoor cat will be flat out terrified to find itself outdoors.
Even though this apparently is an indoor-outdoor cat, if it’s not in her familiar location, she’s still going to be badly frightened, and she’s not going to know right off how to stay alive in a new location.
And how much extra work can it be to put down and occasionally wash two cat food dishes instead of one? Even cats who love each other will be less stressed if they don’t have to shove their face into the other cat’s face in order to get something to eat. And eliminating outside cat pans is very often, with cats, a reaction to stress – and sometimes an attempt to communicate to the human that something needs fixing.
Haven’t you mentioned this cat before in another thread?
You admitted you didn’t care because you felt your landlord was overcharging you, so it’s your own fault. Now you’re going to let the poor cat pay the price of your ignorance? That’s disgusting.