Cat Has Started Peeing On My Carpet And Won't Stop

[IvoCaprino]

I moved about six weeks ago, and after a week or so my cat had gotten used to the new house. She behaves just as she used to prior to the move, aside from the fact that she now pees on my fluffy living room carpet. She's about 9-10 months old (found her as a starved kitten, so no knowing how old she was at the time), and she's most likely pregnant after she got out a few weeks ago (the vet will have a look at her on Wednesday so I know for sure).

I scoop out her litter box several times a day and use this super absorbant litter to keep it from smelling too bad when I'm at work or otherwise not able to remove her droppings, and she doesn't seem to have an issue with the litter box itself. She's never pooped outside it, and didn't start peeing on the carpet until 3 weeks ago. Yesterday I cleaned three stains from my carpet with baking soda, vinegar, and this foul smelling spray designed to keep cats and dogs from getting close to that area again. A little while later I noticed that she was using her litter box when peeing, and thought that I had finally masked her smell to the point where she wouldn't pee on the same spot again.... Technically I was right, because just now I found a new stain on a different corner of the carpet.

This is driving me crazy, as I can't figure out why she keeps peeing on that exact carpet. I have others, but she doesn't pee on them. Could it be because the carpet was brand new when I moved? ANY advice on how to stop her from doing this and understanding why she keeps it up would be great!

 

[cocobutterfly]

First, you should have her checked out by a vet to rule out any medical issue. If that has been ruled out and the vet says it's a behavioral issue, you can take steps to bring her back into the box. And feel free to look at all my past posts regarding this topic. I've written extensively because we have one extremely litter-picky/ litter box-picky cat.

First, you have to use an enzyme cleaner that breaks down the urine. Here's a 32 ounce bottle for less than $5. Nature's Miracle is just one of the many companies that make this. Vinegar and baking soda may remove enough of the urine smell for your human nose, but a cat can smell 1,000 times better than humans so that urine smell is still alive and well for her. And wherever she's marked, she thinks is the spot she can go relieve herself.

Second, get more litter boxes. Put them in different parts of the house. Put one over the spot where she's already marked. I know the house won't look so pretty, but this is temporary, so put aside your human vanity. Test out different shapes and heights. Make sure the litter boxes are big and roomy enough for her to easily dig, turn around and choose different areas to go. Our picky cat will not pee in the same wet spot that she's already peed on until we scoop it out. Bottomline, let your cat choose which location and box she likes best. This is not our suggestion, but it was our cat's favorite. Nature's Miracle high-sided litter box. It's currently $13.63 which is a great deal. It used to be around $20.

Third, Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract (red bag) brought our problem urinator back into her litter box. It is completely unscented (scents including natural essential oils are NOT good for cats and their sensitive noses). It has phermones in it that attract cats. As soon as we opened the bag, she was following the litter into the box. This coming from a litter and litter box hater. You only need this during her re-training phase. We actually still have the one bag that we bought over a year ago. We never needed to use the entire bag to bring our cat into the box. You can read about it on Amazon - here.

After that, we moved onto Dr. Elsey's Ultra (blue bag). It's cheaper and has done the job ever since. All in all, we tested every different litter boxes (except for the robotic ones), different locations of the house, different rooms and every litter on the market including ones not marketed as cat litter (horse pine pellets, stove wood, etc.). It was an exhausting but a very worthwhile trial run. One by one, we were able to remove the litter boxes scattered all over the house down to the one that she began using exclusively.