Expert: Tina - 5/27/2007

Question
Dear Tina,
I have a cat who will turn 2 years in August.
I never had problems with him and since he was a very clean cat me and my
boyfriend decided to keep him with no fixing done.
The problem started 3 months ago when I discovered I was pregnant. I know
it sounds incredible but that's exactly when my cat started urinating on my
sofa, bed, pillows. I'm desperate for I'll have so much work in 6 months and I
always need to clean up. It is not healthy for me (since I'm pregnant) to be so
much in contact with cat's urine and would like to have some suggestion on
how to correct this.

help!

G

Answer
Hi Guia,

First you need to take your cat to the vet for a urinalysis. Most problems with urination are due to a medical problem such as cystitis, and stress (from changes in the household, such as anticipation of a new baby) can bring these on. If you've ever had a bladder infection you know how the burning pain during urination feels, and cats start to associate the pain with the litterbix and avoid it.

It's also possible that your cat feels insecure or upset about the changes going on, and that this is a behavioral problem. But first you must rile out medical problems since an untreated bladder infection can spread to the kidenys and is painful and very dangerous.

Here is an article outlining the steps to solving this problem:

http://catnet.stanford.edu/articles/litterbox.html

Good luck!