Female, indoor, 14yr old Ragdoll.
I've grown up with pets my whole life, my mom is a breeder, never had a problem with urination before. This is the healthiest, most active cat I've ever had the pleasure of sharing my home with. Never exhibited any signs of bad behavior or stress -- loves humans and cuddles.
Eight months ago, she experienced her first and only health issue, a UTI. It was obvious from day one, she was stress vocalizing and peeing on the couch and bed. Took her immediately into the vet, they did a bunch of bloodwork and prescribed meds. The UTI cleared up (took a few days for the urination to stop) and the bloodwork came back with no issues.
Ever since, she's been urinating on our bed but with no obvious patterns. At first it was weekly, then every two weeks, now it's about every 4-6 weeks. Over the course of this situation we have tried everything we can think of to understand and resolve the behavior. Each time we think we've found the cause, the next incident proves us wrong. For example, when it started, she would urinate very early in the morning. She would jump on the bed, try to wake us up to get fed and when we didn't respond she would urinate. So we started to wake up as soon as she would meow and feed her (despite it not being a bit before her normal feeding time) but then the next time she urinated hours after she was fed. We thought maybe she was unhappy with the placement of her litterbox so we got a second. We've tried feeding her treats on the bed, no resolve. We thought maybe we're not playing with her enough, so we upped the frequency of our playtime. Added more scratching pads. You name it, we've done it, and we're out of ideas.
We took her back to the vets for a full check up, healthy as an ox. Even the vet remarked at how young and healthy she seemed for her age. Her behavior is the same as it has been her whole life. Today after a 6 week period of no urination, she had another incident while no one was even in the bed at a random time in the afternoon. I found out hours after she did it. She never came over to us to indicate a need or a moment of stress.
It does not seem physical in nature, and I'd like to think we're very in tune with her behavior. My husband works from home so there's someone with her at all times of day. Our own habits and behaviors have not changed in any meaningful way.
Obviously the UTI was the trigger for this behavior, but why it is continuing? We've cleaned the bed to the best of our abilities, going to great lengths to remove the smell with all of the usual treatments that are recommended. I realize we can probably never get rid of the smell completely and so I think maybe a new mattress might help but if it continues after that would be the worst case scenario. It seems too risky. Also, when she had the UTI she urinated on the couch so why doesn't she see that as a place to urinate all these months later?
Where do we go from here? We're nearing our wits end. I will never give up a pet, so when I say wits end, I just mean we're at a complete loss and frustrations are high due to our diminished quality of life. We can't put sheets on our bed, we're sleeping on a blanket of pee pads and using cheap throwaway blankets for our covers.
I've grown up with pets my whole life, my mom is a breeder, never had a problem with urination before. This is the healthiest, most active cat I've ever had the pleasure of sharing my home with. Never exhibited any signs of bad behavior or stress -- loves humans and cuddles.
Eight months ago, she experienced her first and only health issue, a UTI. It was obvious from day one, she was stress vocalizing and peeing on the couch and bed. Took her immediately into the vet, they did a bunch of bloodwork and prescribed meds. The UTI cleared up (took a few days for the urination to stop) and the bloodwork came back with no issues.
Ever since, she's been urinating on our bed but with no obvious patterns. At first it was weekly, then every two weeks, now it's about every 4-6 weeks. Over the course of this situation we have tried everything we can think of to understand and resolve the behavior. Each time we think we've found the cause, the next incident proves us wrong. For example, when it started, she would urinate very early in the morning. She would jump on the bed, try to wake us up to get fed and when we didn't respond she would urinate. So we started to wake up as soon as she would meow and feed her (despite it not being a bit before her normal feeding time) but then the next time she urinated hours after she was fed. We thought maybe she was unhappy with the placement of her litterbox so we got a second. We've tried feeding her treats on the bed, no resolve. We thought maybe we're not playing with her enough, so we upped the frequency of our playtime. Added more scratching pads. You name it, we've done it, and we're out of ideas.
We took her back to the vets for a full check up, healthy as an ox. Even the vet remarked at how young and healthy she seemed for her age. Her behavior is the same as it has been her whole life. Today after a 6 week period of no urination, she had another incident while no one was even in the bed at a random time in the afternoon. I found out hours after she did it. She never came over to us to indicate a need or a moment of stress.
It does not seem physical in nature, and I'd like to think we're very in tune with her behavior. My husband works from home so there's someone with her at all times of day. Our own habits and behaviors have not changed in any meaningful way.
Obviously the UTI was the trigger for this behavior, but why it is continuing? We've cleaned the bed to the best of our abilities, going to great lengths to remove the smell with all of the usual treatments that are recommended. I realize we can probably never get rid of the smell completely and so I think maybe a new mattress might help but if it continues after that would be the worst case scenario. It seems too risky. Also, when she had the UTI she urinated on the couch so why doesn't she see that as a place to urinate all these months later?
Where do we go from here? We're nearing our wits end. I will never give up a pet, so when I say wits end, I just mean we're at a complete loss and frustrations are high due to our diminished quality of life. We can't put sheets on our bed, we're sleeping on a blanket of pee pads and using cheap throwaway blankets for our covers.