Expert: Kate Tilmouth - 1/7/2009

Question
Hi, My boyfriend and I have three cats and a female dog.  Our first cat is a female and over a year old and fixed.  Our second (which we now call our problem middle child) is a male and 7 1/2 months old and we just adopted another female who we are guessing is about about 6 or 7 months old.  Everything was fine until our male cat starting spraying - on the beds, blankets, pillows, clothes etc.  We went to get him fixed and found out that his balls never dropped and they had to have an exploratory ball surgery to locate and remove them. A week after surgery he started peeing (not spraying) on the beds and blankets again.  We took him back to the vet and found out that he had pulled some internal stitches and had a hernia.  They took him in immediately and all was well until another week passed and he started to pee on the blankets again.  We are at out wits end.  I even went out and purchased another litter box to see if it would get him to stop (we now have 3 litter boxes total) but apparently it didn't work because I just found out that he peed again last night on the same blanket as the other times.  Does he have an infection?  Is he jealous of the new cat?  Please any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi
well this is a difficult question to answer considering that there are medical problems involved which could well be either causing the problem or stressing the cat out so much that he is urinating in the home to calm himself down (the smell of their own urine in the homes makes it smell more like them and so helps to calm them)

As long as you are still going through any treatment via the vet regarding his condition the only other thing you can try is to confine your cat to one room for a week or so with his litter tray, bed, toys and water and only let him out to eat. this confinement is not a punishment but a way of giving the cat a break from too much other stresses he may encounter and also will allow him time to get used to the litter tray again. After the week you can start letting him out for short periods until you think he is able to cope with the wider space. This is a well tried and tested process for teaching cats who may be stressed to use the litter tray. of course if their are medical problems which could be causing the urination then this training will not work.

Any way i hope the little chap gets over his medical problems soon and can find his confidence again to stop urinating around the home. I do have a web page I have written about urination problem which you may find of interest http://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-urine.html

best wishes Kate
http://www.our-happy-cat.com