Unneutered young male

[its tom the cat]

I adopted a young cat from Cuba. He is blind, has no eyes. He is not neutered as the Cuban sanctuary could not find the testes. I took him to two local vets and neither can find them. He is now about 15 months old. He has a habit of getting very rambunctious, chasing and clinging on to my wife's legs and urinating occasionally around the house.

He has two litter boxes which are scraped each time he uses them.

What to do?

 

[Primula]

Do you have a specific question in mind?

 

[its tom the cat]

Instead of writing "What to do?" I should have written "What can I do?"

 

[Primula]

Again, is there something specific that you want us to help you with?

 

[its tom the cat]

I guess that my last reply didn't help. I was looking for suggestions, ideas etc. Next time I will write my post in understandable English,

 

[piano cat]

 
I adopted a young cat from Cuba. He is blind, has no eyes. He is not neutered as the Cuban sanctuary could not find the testes. I took him to two local vets and neither can find them. He is now about 15 months old. He has a habit of getting very rambunctious, chasing and clinging on to my wife's legs and urinating occasionally around the house.

He has two litter boxes which are scraped each time he uses them.

What to do?

Maybe yet another Vet could find testes and neuter him.  If testes are retained in the body there is a chance they could become cancerous.

Chasing and clinging sounds like high spirits to me, though the clinging onto your wife's legs isn't nice for her, I bet.  Do you play with him to try to help him get rid of some of that energy?  That might help.  If he's blind can your wife just avoid when he tries to do that?  Cats use hearing to help locate though, maybe she's tried that?

Urinating outside the litter box might be a sign of UTI.   That would mean a Vet check.  That would be an easy solution.  One thing I have read is to NOT clean the boxes so quickly.  You might try leaving them a day or two so he knows by scent that's where he should pee.  If you are bleaching or using some kind of cleanser try stopping that as well.  We only clean/disinfect the boxes once a week.  Sometimes we miss and only clean them out every second day.

 

[its tom the cat]

Thank you for the reply. One vet hospital suggested an ultra sound test to search for them but they wanted $400 plus tax and they could not guarantee any findings. My regular vet never mentioned the cancer potential but I do know that when we rescued rabbits one of the vets we contracted for the spay cut corners and left parts in. This is a high risk for cervical cancer.

As to urinating out of the box this happens about once or twice a month. But as you know it can be annoying to walk into a room and get hit by the smell. When I wrote about scraping the litter box I scrap them out after he defecates but not after urination. The boxes are used for a bit less than a week before they are changed.

I do not think its the litter either.

Can an indoor cat have a UTI problem? I don't know much of his history except he was feral until he was about 3 months and then placed in a sanctuary. Before cats can be adopted from Cuba they go through a fairly good exam but don't know if it included a UTI exam.

 

[Willowy]

If the testes can't be located, ask the vet about hormone therapy. It's not commonly used in the US and Canada, but apparently vets in Europe will frequently prescribe hormones to toms who can't be neutered for some reason. So your vet might have to do some research.

 

[piano cat]

Yes, an indoor cat can have a UTI and/or develop crystals.   If this only happens about once a months it's less likely but if a Vet is going to look for retained testes he/she could draw a urine sample at the same time just to be sure.

When I had very small kittens sometimes they just could not get to the litter box in time, it was too far away.  I put in extra boxes.   I wonder if a blind cat gets a bit disoriented in his own house and can't find/remember where to go for the box?  A wild guess but another little box would be easy to try.

 

[its tom the cat]

Thank you for the comments. Earlier someone asked if the cat gets to play with us because climbing and clawing my wife's legs may be a cause of too much energy. I forgot to answer but yes, he gets plenty of play and rough housing. He has a morning habit that once I finish brushing my teeth he heads for the bedroom where he waits to play. Without fail.

I don't know if he forgets where the litter boxes are. His blindness is really strange because he walks around, climbs up and jumps for toys and even chases flies from room to room. The vets swore he was totally blind and even wanted to sew his eyelids shut to prevent infection (I would never let that happen) but he has no actual eyeballs. So he knows where things are but am now thinking this might be a rebellious move on his part. He peed on three soft briefcases, a toy doll and a seat cushion in the dining room. All at different times of course.

 

[Willowy]

Tomcats are hormonally/instinctually driven to spread their man scent far and wide :lol3:. So he really HAS to do this, his hormones are pretty much ruling his brain at this age. So it's not rebellion or litterbox avoidance, just plain old instinct. Only changing his hormones will help, whether that's by removing his testes or using hormone therapy.

What have the vets done so far? Did they actually open him up and look around? Sometimes the sneaky things are hiding .