Help! Adopted stray cat peeing on my bed all of a sudden

Question

My female spayed cat Togepi was a stray cat until earlier this year (round about March) when we decided to take her in. As a stray cat she spent most of her time outside and refused to use a litter box since she's used to going in gardens and dirt all her life.

Recently she's become more needy and loving after her sterilization, and I decided to start keeping her inside, with open doors so she could go outside when nature calls. It's never been a problem before, but all of a sudden she started to pee on my bed. E.g. this morning I took her outside to pee and she didn't, came back to my room, and played for about 20 min, after which she jumped on top of my bed, looked me straight in the eye and started peeing.

Now I don't know what to make of this, since last week she was at a vet for a full examination, micro chipping, vaccines etc. In other words - health wise she's as healthy as can get. But she has never used a litter box before and now all of a sudden she keeps peeing on my bed.

Note: She did it again later after I washed all my sheets too.

I have narrowed it down to either stress, or marking territory since she's only recently been allowed to wander about in the house and sleep inside. Also, I will be moving overseas soon and my family is moving to another house soon too- can this underlying stress be the culprit of this strange behavior?

For the check list: *I play with her everyday for almost an hour if not more, day and night *I feed her everyday *She sleeps mostly in my room *She follows me around like my shadow *I give her plenty of love and affection *We have a litter box, but she doesn't use it, and I cleaned it as well, she still peed on my bed.

Any suggestions that may help?

Answer 1

I'm going to hazard a guess that you have a stressed cat. The behavior you describe (looking at you before peeing) is in my experience typical of a cat that's feeling insecure and wants reassurance.

Cats don't like change, and that includes you and your family's habits. If both you and your family are moving soon, that means that the patterns of behavior your cat thought were normal have changed, and she's not happy about this.

Your best option is lots of reassurance and petting. Try not to get angry at the cat when she lets fly, and where possible, close the bedroom door and keep other likely targets away from her. It's hard to get the smell of cat pee out of things, which means that you're always better off preventing than having to fix up afterwards.

When you catch her on the bed assuming the position, pick her up and hold her while taking her outside to one of her preferred places. Talk to her softly and pet her a lot while she's there, and stay outside with her for a while.

I've used a version of this to stop unwanted urination in several cats now, and with enough patience it works. The cat gets the idea that you're not abandoning her and gets the attention she wants, and ultimately you get to avoid having to clean a whole lot of cat urine off things.

For the litterbox - the first thing you need to think of here, again, based on my experience, is how similar the kitty litter is to her preferred places outside. She's more likely to use a box with litter that's got a similar texture and scent to the places she uses outside. If that means mixing soil from one of her favorite spots with the litter so there's a familiar smell, do that until she's accustomed to it.

I would honestly not even try to get her using a litterbox until you've fixed the urination issue. Otherwise you're just adding confusion and stress to an already insecure cat.

Once that's stable (at least a couple of weeks without improper urination), you can change out or adjust the litter, and start taking her to the box when she shows signs of wanting to go. Always talk softly and pet her a lot, particularly while she's in the box, so she associates it with good things. It may take a while, but she should eventually get the idea that the litterbox is also a place to do her business.

Answer 2

I completely understand your frustration. Check where you’ve placed the litter box. Does your cat feel safe there?

My cat was a rescue but never had litter box issues until we moved to a place that had a laundry room. I thought this was the perfect place for a litter box. The cat disagreed and peed on carpeting in a room adjacent to the laundry room. In retrospect, I realize this as her attempt to comply by urinating as close to her box as she felt safe. She didn’t use her litter box until I realized she had never seen - or heard - a washing machine before and was completely terrorized by it and I moved her box to the bathroom. I never had another problem.

That said, I also tried cat calming pheromones. It’s a plug in device that emits pheromones over time. Some owners have reported great success, though it did nothing in my case. You might want to look into that, too.

Hope things work out soon!

Answer 3

The way I train feral cats to use a litter-box is to use an open litter-box without any lid.

Most kittens learn from their mother how to use a litter-box if they live indoors. But your cat might be born from a feral mother and simply does not understand the concept of a litter-box and that it is supposed to do its stuff there.

Put the cat in the litter-box and show it how to dig a little. While the cat sees you, you might have to do this several times but the cat will understand what you want just be patient.

It is best if you put the cat in the litter-box right after it has eaten. Another thing you can do is to move some of the stool or pee into the litter-box from where you don't want it and leave it there for a short time not long but only to make sure your cat can smell it.

The litter-box has to be in a quiet and undisturbed place of your house.

I once had a kitten, it was too young to be an outdoor cat, so it had only lived indoors. And he was only used to use a litter-box. We did take this cat on vacation on an island full of sand. My cat did not know where to do his toileting, so he held back for almost two days until I made a square in the sand and put him there and this solved the problem.