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- Feb 26, 2018
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I waffled over whether to post this in Behavior or in Health, but I strongly suspect that this is a behavior issue at this point.
Quick living situation background, as it may be pertinent: we moved into a new apartment last November. This apartment is the 1st floor of a house and is much larger than anywhere else we've lived, and is much more labyrinthine - prior, we've lived in small lofts that were basically one room. Keats the cat's major urinary issues started in January of this year.
Before this year, Keats has been the pinnacle of health - he went to the vet for checkups but never had to go for emergencies (though he is young; 6 years). He was fastidious and used the litter box with no issues. Then January hit and he blocked up totally, and even though this wasn't a 3rd strike situation the emergency surgeon strongly advised we do the PU as his urethra was "uncommonly narrow" and was entirely blocked by sludge stuff. He recovered ok from that first one, but we noticed pretty early that he was straining a bit while trying to pee. 3 different vets told us it was just anxiety that was making him strain to pee all over the house and they gave us all sorts of medication including Prozac. In the end, it turns out he was stricturing so he had the revision PU in March.
Recovery from the 2nd PU was better, and he seemed back to normal 3 weeks after the surgery. But just when we began to breathe a little easier, Keats started peeing outside the box again. At first he strained a little, and we panicked and brought him back to the vet - his urinalysis was fine and the vet suggested he may have FIC. He's had obvious flare ups since then, which usually are comprised of 2 hours of him yowling and straining in different parts of the house, but those flare ups have gotten less common. What is more common (i.e. multiple times per day) is him just peeing in a repertoire of about 8 different spots in the apartment. It seems to happen in the morning and at night, and it seems to be when he gets excited (like when we come home or when he's about to eat). He just moseys to a typical pee spot, scrunches up his back a little bit, puts his tail up, and pees freely & plentifully. Today he did a new thing and peed on me while I was napping in bed, which is prompting this write-up.
Last month, we went on vacation and we decided to board him at the vet for just-in-case health purposes as this year has been so rocky (side note, the week after he was boarded was a breath of fresh air. He didn't pee outside the box at all and was loving on us like crazy). He had a check-up prior to boarding, and the vet agreed with me that post-vacation, the best thing to do would be to try everything we could to de-stress the apartment, including Feliway diffusers, another litter box, breaking up play time into multiple times per day, etc. So that's what we've done. And nothing has helped. He's on prescription food now and I've tried tinkle tonic as well as this homeopathic anxiety relief drops from Chewy, and those haven't helped, either. We smother him with affection as often as we can and we definitely do not get frustrated with him when he pees outside the box. Personality-wise, he seems the same as he did before all of this urinary drama began. He just won't stop peeing on the floor whenever he wants. And we're considering buying stock in Nature's Miracle.
We have come up with many reasons this may be happening -- perhaps his new urethra is just so weird for him that he's happy to pee wherever he gets the urge because it's still so new? Has his anxiety increased ten fold since he's gone to the vet dozens of times in the span of a few months and had major surgery twice (plus a catheterization) and his cat carrier is his arch nemesis? Also, the tenant before us in this apartment had a huge boxer. We're not sure if the dog peed anywhere in the house, but we thought that maybe he's now just trying to cover up any lingering pheromones if the dog *did* pee?
We'd rather not put him on prozac, but we're going to take him back to the vet soon to see if there are any more options. As he's not straining at all (or yowling), I really don't feel like it's bladder inflammation or anything like that.
Apologies for the novel, but I'm really hoping someone can pipe in with some commiseration -- maybe one of you has dealt with this post-PU and has a magic solution? We don't mind cleaning up after him because we love him very much, but we'd just rather not have this be a forever thing.
Quick living situation background, as it may be pertinent: we moved into a new apartment last November. This apartment is the 1st floor of a house and is much larger than anywhere else we've lived, and is much more labyrinthine - prior, we've lived in small lofts that were basically one room. Keats the cat's major urinary issues started in January of this year.
Before this year, Keats has been the pinnacle of health - he went to the vet for checkups but never had to go for emergencies (though he is young; 6 years). He was fastidious and used the litter box with no issues. Then January hit and he blocked up totally, and even though this wasn't a 3rd strike situation the emergency surgeon strongly advised we do the PU as his urethra was "uncommonly narrow" and was entirely blocked by sludge stuff. He recovered ok from that first one, but we noticed pretty early that he was straining a bit while trying to pee. 3 different vets told us it was just anxiety that was making him strain to pee all over the house and they gave us all sorts of medication including Prozac. In the end, it turns out he was stricturing so he had the revision PU in March.
Recovery from the 2nd PU was better, and he seemed back to normal 3 weeks after the surgery. But just when we began to breathe a little easier, Keats started peeing outside the box again. At first he strained a little, and we panicked and brought him back to the vet - his urinalysis was fine and the vet suggested he may have FIC. He's had obvious flare ups since then, which usually are comprised of 2 hours of him yowling and straining in different parts of the house, but those flare ups have gotten less common. What is more common (i.e. multiple times per day) is him just peeing in a repertoire of about 8 different spots in the apartment. It seems to happen in the morning and at night, and it seems to be when he gets excited (like when we come home or when he's about to eat). He just moseys to a typical pee spot, scrunches up his back a little bit, puts his tail up, and pees freely & plentifully. Today he did a new thing and peed on me while I was napping in bed, which is prompting this write-up.
Last month, we went on vacation and we decided to board him at the vet for just-in-case health purposes as this year has been so rocky (side note, the week after he was boarded was a breath of fresh air. He didn't pee outside the box at all and was loving on us like crazy). He had a check-up prior to boarding, and the vet agreed with me that post-vacation, the best thing to do would be to try everything we could to de-stress the apartment, including Feliway diffusers, another litter box, breaking up play time into multiple times per day, etc. So that's what we've done. And nothing has helped. He's on prescription food now and I've tried tinkle tonic as well as this homeopathic anxiety relief drops from Chewy, and those haven't helped, either. We smother him with affection as often as we can and we definitely do not get frustrated with him when he pees outside the box. Personality-wise, he seems the same as he did before all of this urinary drama began. He just won't stop peeing on the floor whenever he wants. And we're considering buying stock in Nature's Miracle.
We have come up with many reasons this may be happening -- perhaps his new urethra is just so weird for him that he's happy to pee wherever he gets the urge because it's still so new? Has his anxiety increased ten fold since he's gone to the vet dozens of times in the span of a few months and had major surgery twice (plus a catheterization) and his cat carrier is his arch nemesis? Also, the tenant before us in this apartment had a huge boxer. We're not sure if the dog peed anywhere in the house, but we thought that maybe he's now just trying to cover up any lingering pheromones if the dog *did* pee?
We'd rather not put him on prozac, but we're going to take him back to the vet soon to see if there are any more options. As he's not straining at all (or yowling), I really don't feel like it's bladder inflammation or anything like that.
Apologies for the novel, but I'm really hoping someone can pipe in with some commiseration -- maybe one of you has dealt with this post-PU and has a magic solution? We don't mind cleaning up after him because we love him very much, but we'd just rather not have this be a forever thing.
