Warning:This is going to be a long post.
I have a 6 year old, spayed, female cat. She was a stray that my hubby found at a hotel while working out of town. The hotel employees were feeding her daily and she walked right up to my husband and meowed and he brought her home.
We put her in a room by herself with her litter box and food and water. She immediately used the litter box. Over the course of 4 weeks, we introduced her to the other 3 cats. At first they were just sniffing at the bottom of the door. Then I got 2 baby gates and put one on top of the other to create a "screen door". There was some hissing at first, but not much. I placed food and water closer and closer to the door and still nothing major happened. She just wanted out of that room. So after the 2nd week I opened up her doorway so she'd have access to another bedroom and bathroom but still not to the other cats except through the screens(I moved the screens to the hallway opening). So the cats could still sniff each other. At the time I had 2 males and another female cat. It was apparent that after 2 weeks, the female cats were going to have an issue. Also, during that first week., before the screens went up, She was spayed and chipped and given all necessary tests and shots.
After a month she was slowly acclimated to the rest of the house and the other cats. Everyone got along except for her and the other female. All of my cats were spayed and neutered. They would give each other a wide berth and hiss, but ultimately just walk away and it never escalated into a cat fight. They were both territorial. In any case, the new cat, Penelope, was a skittish cat. Super friendly to me and hubby. But would scare easily at loud noises and wasn't a lap cat, etc. Still. She used the litter boxes well. Fast forward a year and she started peeing outside the box. Took her to the vet and all lab work was fine. The Dr said she may have a slight case of stress cystitis so she gave her a round of antibiotics. All seemed well and she used the litter box again until a couple of months later when she peed outside the box again. Back to the vet for more labs. All looked fine, not even cystitis this time. So I went about retraining her to use the litter box. I put her in a bedroom and within the bedroom a xxL crate that had 2 levels. Upper level with her bed, water. And food bowl and Lower level with her litter box. She used it each and every time. Also. During this whole time, from the start of her peeing inappropriately, I tried various litters to see if maybe she just didn't like the litter. I had 6 litter boxes and I placed different litter in 2 of them to give her an option. I went through at least a dozen litters. Grass, wood, various clay brands, all unscented and all open litter boxes.
She was retrained for 3 weeks and then slowly let into more and more of the house. She still went to that litter box over and over. I thought, yay! She's been retrained. Not so. 2 months later, back to peeing outside the litter box. A year after we got her, 1 of my male cats died from cancer, so then there were 3. We were also getting ready to pack up and move to another house..the vet suggested putting her on fluoxetine(Prozac) as it seemed to be behavioral and not physical. So I did. It worked great. We made the move and lived a year in that house without any pee incidents. However, there started to be poop incidents. I had cameras around both old and new houses and that's how I knew who the culprit was. She started pooping upstairs about once every 2-3 weeks in the hallway. We had outdoor cameras. I thought maybe she was seeing a cat outside and was marking her territory. But her poops didn't coincide with outdoor cat action. FF another 6 months and she started peeing outside the litter box again. So the fluoxetine didn't seem to be working anymore...or at least not consistently. The vet didn't think we should up her dose. She was on 5mg once a day. She said there was another medicine she could have, but she wasn't a fan of it because it usually caused other problems with their personality.
When I moved into this new house. I ordered 2 litter robots. She used them consistently for the first year. So I added a couple of open regular litter boxes thinking maybe she didn't like the robots. She never used them, not even once. I also had one robot upstairs with a regular litter box and 1 robot downstairs with a regular litter box. The litter robots have a set of stairs that lead up to the opening. I got these for my 2 older cats and it helped with the litter tracking. The last year, She's started peeing on the steps of the litter robot. With the help of the cameras, I noticed that she would poop inside the robot, cover her poop and then leave the robot. After about 5 minutes, she would come back, stick her head inside and then turn around and pee on the steps. So I thought I'd had an eureka moment. She doesn't want to go pee inside a box that still has her poop in it. Here's one of the problems. I can set the litter robot to spin and clean after 3,7, or 15minutes. At the time I had it set to 15 minutes. The reason for that is that when she went to pee, which was once a day, she would walk into the robot and immediately squat and pee right on the edge of the rubber lining and she peed a HUGE amount. Even after 15 minutes. The pee would not be totally absorbed by the litter and she never covered her pee, Only her poop. So when the robot rotated, part of the pee clump, which was still not hard clumped because of where she pees, would rotate and stick to the inside roof of the litter robot. So when another cat went to use it, A lovely glob of wet litter would rub against their head. And it was a mess to clean up. So I set the robot to rotate after 7 minutes. It helped, but not with the messy pee clumps. That was what it was. But about every 3 weeks, she would pee on the steps again. So I changed it to every 3 minutes. So you can see the ongoing problem....BTW, she never peed on the steps of the robot upstairs. That one gets used but only half as much as the one downstairs. They just all hang out downstairs most of the time.
So I just consigned myself to the knowledge that I'd have to clean up pee and poop forever and at least she was peeing on something that was super easy to clean......until.....she peed on a brand new area rug in our living room. So now she's upstairs in her own bath and bedroom suite with 2 litter robots in the bathroom. She's been up there for 2 weeks while I try to figure this thing out. Each with different litter, for now. Maybe on top of not wanting to use a dirty litter box, she doesn't want to use a litter box that another cat has used. Not sure at this point. I work a full time job, but I go up 3x a day for at least 20 minutes each time to feed her and play with her. The last visit is for about an hour to brush her and pet her, etc. She's very loving and she's not big on playing vigorously. She'll play a little bit , but not enough to really get any exercise. She eats well and has used the box every day. The one robot, she's used once to poop in but never again. The other robot she uses for both. This morning after feeding her and brushing her. She went to poop in the robot. She came back to the bed and I continued to pet her. As I was leaving I saw that she was heading back to the litter box to pee. It had not been 7 minutes yet so the robot had not cleaned the litter yet. She turned around as if to squat on the steps to pee. I rushed to her and told her not to, scaring her I'm sure and she ran underneath the bed. She's been there ever since. I know this because the camera that's in there has not detected any motion and I can look at the recording. It records continuously. I feel bad that I scared her, but I didn't want her to pee on the steps and I had to get to work. I'm running out of ideas here. I'm not rich. I can't afford a behavioral therapist. I called the one in the area and it was $600 for the initial visit and they would need to see her and the other cat that might be causing an issue..now I'm thinking it has nothing to do with the other cat and entirely to do with her litter box preferences. I have spent a small fortune on litter robots, regular boxes, Litter, meds, cat trees, etc. I've taken the opportunity to deep clean the downstairs while she's upstairs. Using an enzymatic cleaner for the rug. I've used a black light up and downstairs to see if she's peed anywhere else and I can't see that she has.
I haven't let the other 2 cats into her room. But 1 of them sits outside her room when I'm in there. She wasn't a love bug to either of the cats, but still would sleep on my bed when the male cat was up there, but not if the female cat was.
I've thought about having 2 boxes in a separate room downstairs with her own microchip cat door so no one but her can use it. I'm willing to do a lot to try to fix this problem because she's a sweet cat and I love her. Please throw out any advice you can give and ask more questions if I've left anything out.
I have a 6 year old, spayed, female cat. She was a stray that my hubby found at a hotel while working out of town. The hotel employees were feeding her daily and she walked right up to my husband and meowed and he brought her home.
We put her in a room by herself with her litter box and food and water. She immediately used the litter box. Over the course of 4 weeks, we introduced her to the other 3 cats. At first they were just sniffing at the bottom of the door. Then I got 2 baby gates and put one on top of the other to create a "screen door". There was some hissing at first, but not much. I placed food and water closer and closer to the door and still nothing major happened. She just wanted out of that room. So after the 2nd week I opened up her doorway so she'd have access to another bedroom and bathroom but still not to the other cats except through the screens(I moved the screens to the hallway opening). So the cats could still sniff each other. At the time I had 2 males and another female cat. It was apparent that after 2 weeks, the female cats were going to have an issue. Also, during that first week., before the screens went up, She was spayed and chipped and given all necessary tests and shots.
After a month she was slowly acclimated to the rest of the house and the other cats. Everyone got along except for her and the other female. All of my cats were spayed and neutered. They would give each other a wide berth and hiss, but ultimately just walk away and it never escalated into a cat fight. They were both territorial. In any case, the new cat, Penelope, was a skittish cat. Super friendly to me and hubby. But would scare easily at loud noises and wasn't a lap cat, etc. Still. She used the litter boxes well. Fast forward a year and she started peeing outside the box. Took her to the vet and all lab work was fine. The Dr said she may have a slight case of stress cystitis so she gave her a round of antibiotics. All seemed well and she used the litter box again until a couple of months later when she peed outside the box again. Back to the vet for more labs. All looked fine, not even cystitis this time. So I went about retraining her to use the litter box. I put her in a bedroom and within the bedroom a xxL crate that had 2 levels. Upper level with her bed, water. And food bowl and Lower level with her litter box. She used it each and every time. Also. During this whole time, from the start of her peeing inappropriately, I tried various litters to see if maybe she just didn't like the litter. I had 6 litter boxes and I placed different litter in 2 of them to give her an option. I went through at least a dozen litters. Grass, wood, various clay brands, all unscented and all open litter boxes.
She was retrained for 3 weeks and then slowly let into more and more of the house. She still went to that litter box over and over. I thought, yay! She's been retrained. Not so. 2 months later, back to peeing outside the litter box. A year after we got her, 1 of my male cats died from cancer, so then there were 3. We were also getting ready to pack up and move to another house..the vet suggested putting her on fluoxetine(Prozac) as it seemed to be behavioral and not physical. So I did. It worked great. We made the move and lived a year in that house without any pee incidents. However, there started to be poop incidents. I had cameras around both old and new houses and that's how I knew who the culprit was. She started pooping upstairs about once every 2-3 weeks in the hallway. We had outdoor cameras. I thought maybe she was seeing a cat outside and was marking her territory. But her poops didn't coincide with outdoor cat action. FF another 6 months and she started peeing outside the litter box again. So the fluoxetine didn't seem to be working anymore...or at least not consistently. The vet didn't think we should up her dose. She was on 5mg once a day. She said there was another medicine she could have, but she wasn't a fan of it because it usually caused other problems with their personality.
When I moved into this new house. I ordered 2 litter robots. She used them consistently for the first year. So I added a couple of open regular litter boxes thinking maybe she didn't like the robots. She never used them, not even once. I also had one robot upstairs with a regular litter box and 1 robot downstairs with a regular litter box. The litter robots have a set of stairs that lead up to the opening. I got these for my 2 older cats and it helped with the litter tracking. The last year, She's started peeing on the steps of the litter robot. With the help of the cameras, I noticed that she would poop inside the robot, cover her poop and then leave the robot. After about 5 minutes, she would come back, stick her head inside and then turn around and pee on the steps. So I thought I'd had an eureka moment. She doesn't want to go pee inside a box that still has her poop in it. Here's one of the problems. I can set the litter robot to spin and clean after 3,7, or 15minutes. At the time I had it set to 15 minutes. The reason for that is that when she went to pee, which was once a day, she would walk into the robot and immediately squat and pee right on the edge of the rubber lining and she peed a HUGE amount. Even after 15 minutes. The pee would not be totally absorbed by the litter and she never covered her pee, Only her poop. So when the robot rotated, part of the pee clump, which was still not hard clumped because of where she pees, would rotate and stick to the inside roof of the litter robot. So when another cat went to use it, A lovely glob of wet litter would rub against their head. And it was a mess to clean up. So I set the robot to rotate after 7 minutes. It helped, but not with the messy pee clumps. That was what it was. But about every 3 weeks, she would pee on the steps again. So I changed it to every 3 minutes. So you can see the ongoing problem....BTW, she never peed on the steps of the robot upstairs. That one gets used but only half as much as the one downstairs. They just all hang out downstairs most of the time.
So I just consigned myself to the knowledge that I'd have to clean up pee and poop forever and at least she was peeing on something that was super easy to clean......until.....she peed on a brand new area rug in our living room. So now she's upstairs in her own bath and bedroom suite with 2 litter robots in the bathroom. She's been up there for 2 weeks while I try to figure this thing out. Each with different litter, for now. Maybe on top of not wanting to use a dirty litter box, she doesn't want to use a litter box that another cat has used. Not sure at this point. I work a full time job, but I go up 3x a day for at least 20 minutes each time to feed her and play with her. The last visit is for about an hour to brush her and pet her, etc. She's very loving and she's not big on playing vigorously. She'll play a little bit , but not enough to really get any exercise. She eats well and has used the box every day. The one robot, she's used once to poop in but never again. The other robot she uses for both. This morning after feeding her and brushing her. She went to poop in the robot. She came back to the bed and I continued to pet her. As I was leaving I saw that she was heading back to the litter box to pee. It had not been 7 minutes yet so the robot had not cleaned the litter yet. She turned around as if to squat on the steps to pee. I rushed to her and told her not to, scaring her I'm sure and she ran underneath the bed. She's been there ever since. I know this because the camera that's in there has not detected any motion and I can look at the recording. It records continuously. I feel bad that I scared her, but I didn't want her to pee on the steps and I had to get to work. I'm running out of ideas here. I'm not rich. I can't afford a behavioral therapist. I called the one in the area and it was $600 for the initial visit and they would need to see her and the other cat that might be causing an issue..now I'm thinking it has nothing to do with the other cat and entirely to do with her litter box preferences. I have spent a small fortune on litter robots, regular boxes, Litter, meds, cat trees, etc. I've taken the opportunity to deep clean the downstairs while she's upstairs. Using an enzymatic cleaner for the rug. I've used a black light up and downstairs to see if she's peed anywhere else and I can't see that she has.
I haven't let the other 2 cats into her room. But 1 of them sits outside her room when I'm in there. She wasn't a love bug to either of the cats, but still would sleep on my bed when the male cat was up there, but not if the female cat was.
I've thought about having 2 boxes in a separate room downstairs with her own microchip cat door so no one but her can use it. I'm willing to do a lot to try to fix this problem because she's a sweet cat and I love her. Please throw out any advice you can give and ask more questions if I've left anything out.
