to be thinking about re-homing my bloody cats?

[Spidermama]

We've had them since kittens and they are now two and a half year old.

One of them is fine. She's out most of the time. She brings in live prey from time to time (rats and shrews) which isn't ideal but she's a cat and I could always get her a bell. My only real beef with her is that she's very fluffy and gets shite caked round her arse.

The other is very beautiful, more timid than her sister and doesn't go out very often. She is pissing me off and every day I want her to go and live somewhere else. She's always after me demanding and being needy. If it's raining she has been known to poo indoors. I've been tolerant up to now but that tolerance shattered when, last week, she squatted down and pissed in my hangbag. I was right there watching.

I grabbed her and locked her out for a few hours. Since then I haven't really been able to make up with her and I just don't like her. I want her gone.

Up to now I have never understood how people can re-home their pets, but I just feel she's too demanding.

Also why the hell doesn't she hang out with the kids? They're great with her. Why is it just me she wants?

I know they are s'posed to be part of the family blah, blah, blah, but I want her out.

Attenborough - thank you for the advice, in response we have tried most things but you are right I am at the end of my tether, I think having 3 almost 4 DC doesn't help. I jsut look at them and all I see is hassle, smell and mess. I am on tenterhooks if anyone visits the house as I think if one of them goes to the toilet the whole house is going to stink. I feel embarrassed to have people round.

Have tried Catsan and almost every brand of cat litter there is, half the time they do't bother to cover it and the other half it stinks just as much, am now using supermarket own brand as I am changing it every day.

They are on indoor cat food anyway I think furballs are part and parcel but on top of everything else it's just one more thing to deal with. Especially annoying when your 1yo finds them before you do.

The tray is a large covered one, I mean she manages to find the door of the tray and pee over it IYSWIM it's not mean feat when you think about it, she has always done it, we have tried the cat flap type doors but they refuse to use them.

We have 3 scratching posts as it is!

I don't think they are stressed they have a great life, they sleep all day, come downstairs once the DC are in bed, eat, poo and sleep some more.

The doors are open in Summer but they never really venture outside.

Sweetkitty, I feel your pain. I have gone as far as making a poster to put up in our local vets, asking if someone will take one of our "fostered" cats - but still haven't printed it.
This cat is one we took in a year and a half ago, and I have seen her wee, spray and poo in the house. On top of that, one of my other cats is unhappy with her prescence and is also marking her territory, which makes a very smelly house and unhappy Pwsimerimew.
After reading everyone's posts, I will take said poster to local vets today, to try and find a worthy home for cat number 3.

Sweetkitty - why on earth do you have 3 cats in the first place? I'm a cat lover for sure but know the trouble that comes with multicat households and am sticking to one!

msrisotto - good question, I ask myself it all the time, probably the answer is when I got the 3 cats there was only DP and I, we both worked long hours and when we came home we loved the cats and could put up with the inconvenience and I truly don't remember the smell being as bad.

It's not the cats faults we now have 3 children as well but when you get up in the morning and your entire house stinks of s*, you have to quickly clean up sick, spat out bits of food and bits of cat litter before your 1 year old eats it, then clean a tray that sometimes has wee underneath it as well, hoover and mop the kitchen floor and only then can you give your DC their breakfast it doesn't really endear you to the cats.

Once the DC are in bed our evenings are spent fishing cat poo out the tray and trying to get rid of the smell, one of them seems to go every half an hour sometimes more than once so some nights I actually go upstairs as I cannot cope with the smell anymore.

I have taken a poster to the vets saying" wanted - a good home for this lovely cat" and guess what, Ive had a promissing call already [grin}
Thanks for the promt!

A lot of behaviourial issues with cats are stress related - and many cats are not very happy with sharing a house with another cat. Cats will express stress behaviours by inappropriate toiletting, spraying/marking, scratching...
My boy was very stressed when he came from the cats home and expressed it by busily removing all the wallpaper he could reach!!
We worked through it with patience, rewarding him when he used his scratching post and reassured him by providing a quiet environment and routine, he settled, we re-decorated and the paper stayed on.
Cats will pick up on negativity and so much better to let Cat go to a home away from such a stressful environment.
some of these posts have made me feel quite sad really for their lack of understanding of an animals basic needs.

Well she went today.

I put a picture of her on Gumtree and a nice couple, middle aged, came to see her. Their cat died three months ago and they are just about ready for another. They have a garden, no children, they clearly know about cats and they seem really very nice. They already have a cat door and everything they might need.

The woman has two weeks off work now which she says will help her to help Sandy settle.

So why am I so sad? I'm having proper grief. It was really awful handing her over and sending her into the unknown.

I really think it'll be right for her.

If it were just me and my dd she would have been fine here but we live in a house full of loud, bumpy, fast moving, full on boys and sometimes it REALLY PISSES ME OFF!!

She would come and hang out with me when they were all out but the minute any of them came home she'd scarper. I feel far more aggrieved than I thought I would. I really miss her. I resent that dd and I are squeezed by the testosterone.

Aww, spidermama, I feel for you

You did what was right for your cat, not for you. I had 3 cats, one of them went to live with my neigbours, would have been cruel to uproot her when we moved. I still get christmas cards from her.

You did the right thing, albeit the hard and unselfish thing. It just feels crap at the moment.

For everyone with cat litter complaints, try Catsan clumping litter. I can't recommend it enough. We've used it for years. The wee solidifies into clumps, making it easy to keep the litter tray clean.

We have a catflap, and our cat comes & goes as she pleases, but we still have a litter tray so she doesn't use our & our neighbours plants as a toilet. If you use the right litter, having a litter tray isn't a problem.

Re-homing through a rescue centre usually ends up in adult cats being put down.

This is the one thing that has stopped me from rehoming ours. I really don't like them. The constant shedding of hair is a nightmare. I have one of those lint-roller things by every exit so that people can de-hair themselves on the way out..

My two can be a right pair of bastards. Both have known to have the occasional poo inside, one has a horrid habbit of spraying and the other squats in corners. We have recently moved to a very large house and I was expecting total carnage, but really it's been ok. Squatter has pissed twice this week because he couldn't be arsed going outside but sprayer has gone from being told he's being put down every week to not at all! Think the extra space has made him happy. Sprayer has a terrible habbit of becoming invisible and getting himself shut in rooms or cupboards all the bloody time which usually ends with a turd hunt.

I can sympathise completely though. I'd go spanners if one of them pissed in my handbag...wouldn't put it passed them.

Crikey spidermama, hope you never find the kids too needy !

I would definitely look at rehoming them. I've never had cats (mildly allergic), but one of the things I really dislike about keeping them is having to have a cat litter tray. I have friends who have it in the kitchen. Why you would want poo around where you cook and eat food and having them scratching away in there and walking all over your kitchen surfaces, bed etc...anyway, do you and the cats a favour and part ways asap.