We have a middle-aged neutered male cat. This past year or so he has started marking territory, to the great detriment of our furniture and carpets. We’re getting really tired of cleaning up after him. I’ve used various enzymes and other treatments (lemon juice, pheromones, etc.) to try to discourage him. No sooner do we dissuade him from marking one place than he finds another.
He has been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, but I really doubt that this is the issue. We have him on a special diet to lose weight, which seems to be working, but this doesn’t seem to have changed his behavior.
We’re about at our wits’ end and are starting to think that the only alternative to having our house smell like cat pee is to euthanize the poor thing. He does not seem to be in pain or unhappy.
We have one other cat, a spayed female, that he has shared the house with for over a decade. We used to have a third cat and a dog, but both are now living with our daughter.
Does anyone have any other alternatives to suggest?
Does he spray (meaning the urine lands several inches up off the floor) or squat to pee where he’s not supposed to? (We have a middle-aged neutered male, and he does the latter, not he former.)
It’s generally their way of telling you in no uncertain terms that something is making him mad. Could be the new food, could be a cat coming around outside that he can smell, could be something else entirely.
We’ve caught him in the act both ways. There was nothing new at the time this behavior started. Since then two potentially competitive animals (my daughter’s dog & cat) have left, and we’ve changed him to the “diet” cat food, which he seems to enjoy.
We found this to be a problem also. You need a small spray bottle of water and when you catch him making his mark, mark him, soon he understands that doing his marking is going to get him marked, he will stop. not mean, a squirt gun worked for the cats outsided and them using our yard to hold there hostilities in, soon even they found another place to keveetch in.
I suppose we could try the squirt gun. We have used that method in the past to teach kittens not to scratch the furniture. Of course, this presumes that someone follows the cat around all day. We don’t always catch him in the act. Usually we just come upon a damp and smelly spot.