Pleeeease help: my cat is peeing post-declawing

[littleraven7726]

Originally Posted by hissy

A friend of mine only rescues declawed kitties. I gave her a call. What you are experiencing can be due to several factors- 1. the litter you buy in the store hurts her paws 2. she could be developing an infection and this is your first warning 3. she is stressed from everything that she has experienced and is peeing on your cover (your scent) to calm her down.

Dory advises to get a very large cardboard box cut the ends down so she can get in and out without jumping. Line the bottom of the box with a plastic liner for a shower curtain cut to fit- don't bother with litterbox liners waste of time and money. Take an old blanket you could care less about and place that in the box on top of the plastic liner. Let her pee and do her business on this. It is soft, it has your smell. Rinse out her waste and urine and launder, then return to the box.

Once she has moved past her discomfort. Put the liner on the ground and the blanket on top, put her normal litter pans on the blanket. Instead of using litter right off, use rabbit pellets (rabbit food) Once she gets better gradually switch to litter (not clumping) allow her to have accidents, she has been through a lot.

That is great advice.

Once she is healed, she will need a very fine, sand-like scooping litter. My 3 cats are front-declawed by previous owners, and are very fussy about that.

I would also recommend Nature's Miracle for the urine stains. If you need a home remedy, we used vinegar/water solution to get dog pee stains out at an apartment we rented years ago.

 

[momofmany]

Originally Posted by StarryEyedTiGeR

I would line the bottom of the litter pan with the "cat attract litter" then put a puppy pee pee pad & shredded newspaper on top of that. This way the cat attract litter is on the bottom and will hopefully attract her back to the pan with its scent- but since it does have fine particles- put it underneath the pee pee pad and newspaper so she doesn't get any particles in her incision site.

I got a plastic/waterproof bed protector from walmart (about $5) and that made it much easier to clean up the accidents.

Instead of using the Cat Attract Litter, try sprinkling the Cat Attract Additive to the bottom of the pan. It has a VERY strong smell and has a very fine texture sort of like fine grained moss. If she breaks thru the paper and pee pads, this won't hurt her paws.

Plastic sheets are a must. I keep them on my bed all the time just in case one of mine gets sick out of the blue.

 

[luveegirl]

Did you find a solution? I am having the exact same problem with my cat. Which is weird because my cats name is also sofie and she was declawed by her previous owner.... Wouldn't that be wild if it was the same cat? Lol

 

[happybird]

This thread is from 2007. The original poster is probably long gone from the forum.

 

[luveegirl]

This thread is from 2007. The original poster is probably long gone from the forum.

I know, it makes me sad because I love my cat so much but my fiance is pushing me to get rid of her because of her bad bathroom habits and it's killing me!

 

[Kat0121]

I know, it makes me sad because I love my cat so much but my fiance is pushing me to get rid of her because of her bad bathroom habits and it's killing me!

I'm sorry to hear that. I'd take her to the vet before doing anything else to rule out a medical issue which could be the cause. 

If you have done this or you do and it's determined to NOT be a medical issue, there are things you can do to get her to use the litter box again. 

Fist off, how many boxes do you have? Is she your only cat? The rule of thumb is 1 box per cat plus one extra so with one cat, the ideal would be 2 boxes. I have 3 cats and 5 boxes. They like having options. 

Second, scoop the box(es) at least once per day. A lot of cats don't like using a dirty box. Dumping out all the litter and sanitizing the boxes once or twice a month is good to do as well. 

Try Dr Elsey's Cat Attract. It is mentioned earlier in this thread. It works. 

What kind of litter i in the box now? Clumping clay litter?It might hurt her feet when she digs to cover her deposits. Try something softer. Some people use litters like Yesterday's News http://www.yesterdaysnews.com/, Feline Pine http://www.felinepine.com/products/feline-pine-clumping-litter.aspx   or World's Best Cat Litter http://www.worldsbestcatlitter.com/

Personally, the only one of these I have tried is the World's Best. I stopped using it because it didn't do much for odor control and it's expensive. I don't have any declawed cats though. It might work for you. 

If it were my cat, I'd try the Arm & Hammer Clump & Seal. It has a texture more like fine sand than some of the more gravelly kinds. This might be better under a declawed cat's feet. It clumps like a champ and is great with odor control. I have heard that the one in the blue box is very perfumey. The one in the red box is not. It's the one for multiple cats. It's the one I get when I buy that brand. Coupons.com often has coupons for it as well. They might have one for World's Best right now too. I saw one recently. 

Edited to add- one last thing- clean the areas where she's been going outside the box with a good enzymatic cleaning solution like Nature's Miracle. That will kill the scent making it less likely she will do it again. Nature's Miracle is available from Amazon at a better price than the big box pet stores like Petco and Petsmart

Good luck!!