Strange Peeing Behaviour!

Hi all,

I've decided to ask for some help!

tl;dr - female cat likes to pee inside cardboard boxes, plastic bags, play-tunnels, and only when I'm in the house, despite having several litter trays and always being fresh. She does this for a short period every couple of weeks/months then stops doing it again. What should I do?

---

I adopted two lovely kittens from the same litter a year ago (they turn 1 today!), Auron (m) and Nova (f). Both spayed and neutered, vaccinated etc. I live in a top-floor apartment so they are, and always have been, indoor cats.

For the rest of the post, this is all specifically about Nova. Auron does none of this and is otherwise perfectly well behaved.

Nova likes to pee in inappropriate places, and I'm struggling to find a pattern, or reason, or cause. I have googled and know all of the common reasons but none quite seem to fit. She has done this intermittently over the past year, then I seem to get it under control for a few months, then she has another period where it's every day.

The first time she did it was when I first adopted them, and over the course of the first few weeks she would pee in things like cardboard boxes - she was a kitten, and newly adopted, so I let it go. I got an extra litter tray (they had been sharing) and I now have two large trays for them to use, one hooded and one open. I usually line the bottom of the tray with a puppy training pad which works WONDERS as it delays an odour coming from the tray. As I have two trays down I probably change them both once a week and that has worked for us all for ages.

She went through a period of constantly peeing in the bath but after we got the litter tray arrangement sorted, she stopped that.

It's been a good 3 months or so since our last issues. This last week or so, however, she has peed somewhere inappropriate every single day.

She has peed inside another shoe box after about 30 minutes of it being down (I trusted her with it as the last shoe box lasted about 3 months before she peed in it, and they both loved playing in boxes). She will pee on any plastic bag she can find (god forbid I leave a grocery bag out after I've put the shopping away!). I've put down fresh litter again despite the current one only being down for 1-2 days but, today, she managed to pull a plastic bag out of the cupboard, sit inside it, and pee in it. The other day, there was an incident on a bath mat, but that was probably because I moved one of the trays to the bathroom for convenience (I've had to move it back as she peed on the bath mat twice - hasn't done it since I've moved it back).

I was away on Friday and asked a friend to come and feed them, and as she was leaving she spotted Nova peeing inside one of their play tunnels. She has done that before BUT I forgave her as it was on a day where they had accidentally locked themselves in a room with no access to the trays.

The only pattern I can see is that she will only do it in or on something, like a box or bag. She has never peed randomly on the floor or anything like that. She's not incontinent as it's always in very specific places. She makes an effort to "dig" afterwards (I usually know she's done it because I can hear her scratching the wooden floor as if she's trying to cover up her mess in the litter tray). She has also only ever done it when I've been present in the house - I never come home to a mess somewhere, she only does it when I'm nearby. Could it be an attention/power thing? Is she trying to tell me that something is wrong? She will run away from the spot afterwards (probably because I've shouted at her a couple of times for doing it) and I can see her sitting with her mouth open and ears down, so I feel like she *knows* it's wrong.

I always remove whatever she's peed in and throw it out straight away so that she doesn't go back to it.

I'm reluctant to go to the vet as she's a really happy, healthy cat and, other than this, she is a perfect little thing. Very affectionate, very playful with her brother, she eats well, she responds to our routines and words for dinner and bed. So it feels like a very specific behavioural issue as opposed to a medical one.

Any and all comments welcome, happy to provide any more information as required!

Take her to the vet. Rule out medical issues before you spend too much time on behaviorial fixes. No amount of behaviorial changes can fix a medical issue. But all the time you spend on behaviorial reasons is time lost on relief and recovery if there is something medical that needs to be addressed. Cats hide pain. It's not in their nature to cry out. Your cat may be in pain and this could very well be a cry for help. This could be the reason she only does it while you're around. She wants you to notice it. Now here's the crazy part. It may have nothing to do with her urinary tract or the litterbox. When my Krista started peeing the walls, it took me months of futile attempts at behavioral "fixes" (and lots of enzyme cleaner) before I finally took her into the vet. I took her into the vet for something else actually. But when I mentioned she was peeing the walls, the vet opened her mouth and said, "yep! thought so. Her teeth are going bad. She's crying for help." We fixed her teeth and she stopped peeing the walls. I'm not saying this is her teeth definitively but how awful would you feel if you spent months trying to fix this behavior and that's what it turns out to be? Once you get a clean bill of health from the vet, you can try all the behaviorial suggestions you are about to get in the replies below me.

daftcat75 said:

Take her to the vet. Rule out medical issues before you spend too much time on behaviorial fixes. No amount of behaviorial changes can fix a medical issue. But all the time you spend on behaviorial reasons is time lost on relief and recovery if there is something medical that needs to be addressed. Cats hide pain. It's not in their nature to cry out. Your cat may be in pain and this could very well be a cry for help. This could be the reason she only does it while you're around. She wants you to notice it. Now here's the crazy part. It may have nothing to do with her urinary tract or the litterbox. When my Krista started peeing the walls, it took me months of futile attempts at behavioral "fixes" (and lots of enzyme cleaner) before I finally took her into the vet. I took her into the vet for something else actually. But when I mentioned she was peeing the walls, the vet opened her mouth and said, "yep! thought so. Her teeth are going bad. She's crying for help." We fixed her teeth and she stopped peeing the walls. I'm not saying this is her teeth definitively but how awful would you feel if you spent months trying to fix this behavior and that's what it turns out to be? Once you get a clean bill of health from the vet, you can try all the behaviorial suggestions you are about to get in the replies below me.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestion!

I suppose the main reason I haven't done this yet is that I'm reluctant to wheel her out to the vet if she does it once, and it usually resolves after I've changed something. I can usually account for it by saying "I probably should've changed the litter earlier" and she goes back to normal...until the next time. So if it was something medical it would have to be something sporadic, recurrent, that doesn't affect any other behaviour.

This might just be a way to avoid the cost of a vet trip. Of course, if my baby needs something, I'll give her the world! But if there's something I'm missing or could try that's as simple as moving things around in the house, or just understanding *why*, I'd prefer to try that first!

Alas, I think a vet trip is inevitable if she does it again...

Is she eating a lot of dry food?

maggiedemi said:

Is she eating a lot of dry food?

Click to expand...

I just leave dry food down all of the time for the both of them and they nibble away whenever, so I must admit I don't know how much they each have, but I've not noticed any issues with how much of it she eats.

What makes you ask that?

Dry food gives both my cats pee problems. Can you decrease the dry food and feed mostly canned food?

There are dozens of things you can try. None of them will work if it turns out to be for a medical reason. I know it's expensive and stressful but it will let you proceed with all the other tips you will receive with a clean conscience knowing you aren't overlooking a cry for help.

You mention you change your puppy pad once a week but how often are you scooping the litter?

The puppy pad is concentrating urine. That’s kinda gross. You may not smell it but your cats probably can. I still want you to rule out a medical reason. But try to go without the pee pad and clean the box more often. Get backup boxes so you can change out the dirties for cleans. The cats have clean boxes and you can wash out the dirty ones without leaving them high and dry.

One of our girls develops bladder inflammation after a few meals of dry food, but stress or anything different can bring this on for her. Stress could be moving furniture, a new animal in the house, us being away for more hours than she prefers, territorial behavior (another cat is interested in her empty food bowl, or an outdoor cat hangs around too much for her liking since she can see him out windows, etc.)
A wet food diet only helps the inflammation, and keeping things as normal as possible and keeping window blinds shut if there's a stray cat hanging around helps her stress level.
I'm no expert but female cats seem to be 10 times more territorial than males, whether they're fixed or not.
If she pees on your things, she might be trying to "claim" you as her own.
There's a product called "cat attact litter" that has helped our girl re-learn litter box habits, we don't fill the box (it'$ expen$ive) but we do sprinkle it over clean litter. If she makes a mistake, we clean it up with Natures Miracle cleaner and mist the area with a no more marking/spraying product for cats by the same company.
I'm glad you're asking for help rather than dumping her somewhere. It can be fixed, just try to learn their language best you can, and try to think like a cat

daftcat75 said:

The puppy pad is concentrating urine. That’s kinda gross. You may not smell it but your cats probably can. I still want you to rule out a medical reason. But try to go without the pee pad and clean the box more often. Get backup boxes so you can change out the dirties for cleans. The cats have clean boxes and you can wash out the dirty ones without leaving them high and dry.

Click to expand...

I don’t know that I agree regarding the puppy pads. I also use them on my litterbox and find that they produce less odor than a litterbox that accumulates wet clumps in the corners and isn’t washed out every week.

susanm9006 said:

I don’t know that I agree regarding the puppy pads. I also use them on my litterbox and find that they produce less odor than a litterbox that accumulates wet clumps in the corners and isn’t washed out every week.

Click to expand...

Why isn’t it getting washed out or wiped down every week? My Krista pees in the same corner in both boxes. I tip the box away from that corner and only the pee clump remains. Nothing is pooling at the bottom. At least weekly, I take a Seventh Generation wipe (the only ones I know that don’t have ammonia) and do a quick pass over her pee corner and another pass with a paper towel to wipe up any excess cleaner. If her poop touches any surface, that surface gets wiped down promptly when I’m picking up the poop. About once a month, I change out the litter completely and give both whole boxes a wash or a wipe down and new litter. This is the agreement we have. I keep her boxes clean and she keeps my floors and walls clean. Of pee and poop anyway. We do what we can for the IBD.

daftcat75 said:

At least weekly, I take a Seventh Generation wipe (the only ones I know that don’t have ammonia) and do a quick pass over her pee corner and another pass with a paper towel to wipe up any excess cleaner. If her poop touches any surface, that surface gets wiped down promptly when I’m picking up the poop. About once a month, I change out the litter completely and give both whole boxes a wash or a wipe down and new litter.

Click to expand...

I do the exact same thing.

Please take your kitty to the vet. As mentioned above, no amount of behavioral modification will resolve the issue until you rule out and treat any underlying condition. And not only that but if this is a medical issue and you let it go on too long then you'll have an ever bigger issue because trying to re-train a cat who has developed litter avoidance due to a medical issue can be very trying.
I went thru the same thing as you and it was a medical issue that started the whole thing, and for 8 YEARS!! we had to deal with the consequences of us not bringing kitty to the vet sooner. Which, might I add, was more costly in the long run. I also have a co-worker who I tried to convince to bring her kitty to the vet for over a year as she was having inappropriate peeing problems. She FINALLY went and her poor kitty had been dealing with PAINFUL crystals and recurring UTIs.
I have a whole list of things that can help with behavior modification, but NONE of it will work if something is going on with her health.