Kitten got spooked and peed on wall, is this normal?

Gabrielle93

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Hi there!

We have a four month old kitten named Maggie. She’s quite a nervous cat, we think because we live next door to construction that she’s constantly spooked by random noises and always a little on edge.

Tonight Maggie was sleeping in her window hammock and my partner crawled into the living room on all fours (it’s been a long weekend!). My partner has long hair that was covering his face, so he looks like something out of The Ring. Maggie heard him crawl in and looked up, jumped out of her skin and peed all over the window behind her. It was not a spray, but fast squirts of urine.

I quickly told my partner to stop and he sat up, after which she calmed down and walked over to him, smooching.

It broke my heart that she was so spooked and was just wondering if that’s normal for a cat to wee themselves/on objects when they’re shocked/scared?

We have Feliway that I’m going to start using consistently to see if it will help calm her down around the ongoing external noise, are there any other approaches to help make a cat feel more safe?

Thanks for any helpx
 

StefanZ

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Yes, peeing is quite common in drastic situations. Both as peeing one oneself when in distress - compare with a cat falling out from a window - it will pee out, and this way lessen the risk the urine bladder will burst upon landing.

And they also may pee as a weapon. Compare with the skunk, whom sprays on his enemy his smelling fluids...
 

susanm9006

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Poor girl. Yes, it is normal and common for a very frightened kitten or cat to lose control and urinate. And kittens have less control to begin with. So I wouldn’t be concerned about that but she may be skittish about being in her hammock for a while as they often remember and avoid being in the place that frightened them.

You definitely want to clean the wall or anywhere the urine may have dripped with an enzyme based cleaner like Nature’s Miracle to remove any urine scent and the potential signal to her that this is a potty spot.
 
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