To want to get rid of my cat?

[pagefruits1991]

Ive had my cat for 6 years. She has always been neurotic, we have even taken her to the vets a couple of times about it.
Basically there isn't much we can do.

She constantly wees on all the beds and sofas. So much so that we have had to ban her from going upstairs. She poos on everything she can. 5 days out of 7 I will come downstairs in the morning to poo on the floor despite there being a clean, huge litter tray with natural wood litter in it.

On Monday she pooed in her food bowl.

I'm aware this isn't normal behaviour however she has always been like this from day 1, we have tried everything from plug ins, behaviour therapy and (v.expensive) steroid injections. Nothings works.

She refuses to eat biscuits and nags for meat, she throws up quite often and does not like being picked up.

She can go outside whenever she likes. She can be out for 12 hours whilst we work etc and come in and wee on the bed.

Things got worse after I had a baby last year. Her behaviour hasn't changed but I no longer have time to pander to it.

I came down this morning to diahorrea in the lounge and my baby nearly went for it! I had to put him back in his crib screaming and get the bleach out.

I feel like her muck might make us or my baby especially, ill.

Genuinely don't know what to do, shes my responsibility but I don't want to risk my sons health for an animal.

It always puzzles me when people get a cat. They throw it out for 12 hours a day. Don't give a monkeys arse where it craps - usually in the neighbours garden so neighbours children have to avoid the shit - but then throw a hissy fit when they have to clean up after the animal they chose to have because, obviously, their own dc is much too precious to be around cat shit! How does that work?

I say this as an animal lover.
You’ve tried everything. In fact you’ve gone above and beyond. Probably more than a lot of people would.
You can’t keep living with a cat who shits everywhere.
PTS with a clear conscience.

Who on earth is going to rehome her?! There are loads of cats in rescue who don’t shit everywhere.

op, I can thoroughly recommend this thread

from another forum, but started by a vet

Lola - would you take this cat on? If you were looking to take a rescue cat and had the choice? Can you honestly say you’d take it?

What does PTS mean?

Put To Sleep.

PLEASE look at the thread I linked to.

(I rehomed an older cat that the previous owner couldn't manage, so it does happen)

Ffs PTS really is that what ppl do to animals that are an inconvienence to their lives?! Theres a thing called rehoming did you ever think your family is noisey and upset the cat a happy healthy cat wouldnt shit all over a house.

@pagefruits1991 this is a very stressful situation and I can see why you are getting fed up.

The fact that she is having diarrhoea suggests that she has some kind of food allergy. My PiL cat is allergic to chicken and anything with chicken in it will give her a bad case of the runs! I would suggest that you start with eliminating any food which has chicken and if she is still having issues, then try eliminating beef and see if that improves her stomach issues. Be sure to check labels as sometimes it is not obvious if a food has something like chicken included.
If she is having stomach problems and it is hurting her to go to the toilet, she may be associating the litter tray with pain. This could be why she is not using it. I second a previous poster who suggested moving a tray to where she is going the most and also trying a different litter.

When cats pee somewhere it basically leaves a signpost for them to know that they can pee there again. They can still smell it, even if you can’t. The way to eliminate this is to use an enzymatic cleaner. This breaks down the protein in the urine, so that “signpost” is no longer there. Your local pet shop should have something, I recommend that that you talk to the staff about the most effective one.

Cat urine also shows up under a black light, you can pick these up quite cheaply. I would recommend that you get one and go through your house with this. It will show up as a glow, you would need to do this at night with the lights off. One of our cats kept peeing next to our bed, we cleaned that area with an enzymatic cleaner and she stopped thankfully! These cleaners don’t usually damage carpets.

I also second a previous poster’s suggestion to post in the litter tray. I would also recommend posting on The Cat Site thecatsite.com/forums/. This is an American site and they have a lot of very knowledgeable people. They were a great help when I had issues with my cats.

I hope this helps and good luck!

Great advice @Emmeline50 ! I hope the OP takes it rather than PTS as i said a happy healthy cat wouldnt act like this

We had exactly the same problem with our cat and no rejoining centre would take her including CPL and Blue Cross. They all said they wouldn't be able to regime her due to her toilet habits.

She was unhappy. She hated my dogs, my boys and especially my other cat!! She was 6

I managed to find someone who would take her, she had to be alone so it was really difficult.

To my knowledge she carried on weeing on beds but was a lot more settled.

That was 3 years ago. I haven't heard in 2 years and am too scared to ask but hope she is happy!!

The fact that she is having diarrhoea suggests that she has some kind of food allergy

Does it? Surely there are hundreds of cause of diarrhoea from bacteria to parasite, to ibs and lymphoma. Although if it’s been more than 6 months and the cat isn’t dead it’s probably not lymphoma :).

My cat had diarrhoea very similar to the o/p, and food allergy was way down on the list of differential diagnosis. The anecdote of your pil’s cat does not mean all cats with diarrhoea have the same causation.

Or are you in cahoots with the vet who wants to leap straight to £4-600 of allergy testing before ruling out —cheaper— more common causes? ;)

@reallyanotherone You raise some good points, when I suggested the food allergy I meant to put "may" as it was simply a suggestion in line with my own experiences of similar behavior.

Or are you in cahoots with the vet who wants to leap straight to £4-600 of allergy testing before ruling out —cheaper— more common causes? ;) This particular comment though is below the quality of the rest of your post.

OP, if you haven't already you might consider taking her to different vet for a second opinion.

@FluffyPineapple you can't see why having your baby potentially crawl through cat shit in your living room is a problem?

And we've never thrown our cats out for 12 hours a day. We generally try and keep them in if we're out, the rest of the time we let them in and out as they want.

Luckily we didn't have a long term problem like the OP - our eldest cat started crapping everywhere when we moved house. This was five months after DS was born and the stress was obviously too much for her. We eventually managed to resolve it by using feliway, buying extra litter trays, finding the exact frequency she preferred them being hosed out and making sure she had quiet time away from the other two cats.

She eventually came round to DS when he got old enough to like giving her treats and he 'shared' (my) chicken (off my plate) with her.

@FluffyPineapple This is not a hissy fit. I'm genuinely upset as my cat is not happy and I don't know how to help.
And yes my baby is too precious to crawl through shit.... Dear God I hope you're not a parent.

Thank you everyone else for suggestions. So far we have changed the litter to what was suggested (catsan) and have let her roam the upstairs again. So far so good.
We are ordering grain free biscuits soon as well, see if that helps.

Thats great OP fx

@Emmeline50 the black light is a good idea, almost too scared to use it but I think its necessary! Are enzyme cleaners available only from vets?

I will check out that thread as well :)

OP have you tried the feliway or zylkene. I had a baby, Rottweiler, rescue jack Russell and my rescue cat and not once did I consider pts. My pets are my family.

Being honest I have not read the full thread. If you have a cat flap OP. Close it ASAP. Cats will often 'midden' on beds etc. in order to establish territory. Having a cat flap makes them feel vulnerable to interlopers and that is why they do it. You might find if you re-homed her and she went elsewhere, she would not do this type of thing.

Apologies as I haven’t RTFT, but behaviour like this can often be be because they were taken away from the mother too soon. In this case there isn’t probably not much you can do to improve things, and it does sound as if you have really tried.

I love kitties, and I would be very sad to do it, but I wouldn’t feel too guilty about having her PTS.

I think it would be much kinder to put her to sleep. Who is going to want her with those problems, she will likely be passed on again and again and that will be horrid for her

@Beaverhausen I have tried Feliway. Kept it plugged in until it ran out, didn't make a difference. I've tried it twice over the years.

In your circumstance I would phone round rescue centres and find someone to take her. Not all cats are actually rehomed with a new family - the rescue centre near us has a number of cats that live there as permanent residents due to various issues and are very well looked after kitties with the run of the place.

Wow at the posts saying PTS. Yes the toileting problem is unhygenic, and must be very frustrating and upsetting for the owner, but it isn't on to just kill a healthy animal because it makes a mess! It's hardly attacking the children.

OP, I hope you get it sorted for you and the poor cat.

I recommend Simple Solution cleaner from pets at home. Either the blue bottle or the silver one with the red top.

Also, instead of using Zylkene (because I couldn't get pills into my cat!) I buy Royal Canin Feline Calm cat food - if you feed biscuits anyway.

OP there is another one called Felisept and natrucalm that you can get from Zooplus.

If you decide not to keep kitty please do not pts but try Cats Protection if they do not have space they will do a home to home rehoming which wont take more than a few weeks.