Cat behaving strangely and weeing indoors

[fuddleduck]

Hello

I am hoping someone can shed some light on the strange behaviour my cat has started displaying recently as I'm getting very worried.

She has started urinating in the house (definitely urinating, not spraying), in a different place each time. She has always gone outside to do her business with no problems. It's a bit of a nightmare as our house is very open plan so she has the run of the place while we're at work and we come home to horrible smells . It would be more manageable if we could confine her to one area of the house but that's not an option unfortunately. We're also trying to sell our house at the moment so the timing couldn't be worse. Also not great from a hygiene point of view when you have a little one running around.

Several times recently we have been woken up by her crying/mewling in the middle of the night for no obvious reason. This also wakes up DD and it takes us ages to get her back to sleep.

She has also scratched my DD (2) on a couple of occasions (I tried to stop her but wasn't quick enough as it came out of the blue) and has tried to scratch her many times but we have intervened. These incidents happened when she was just sat there playing, not harassing the cat or anything. I am now having to keep them separated at all times (which is very difficult due to the open plan nature of our house) as she keeps going for her.

She eats less and less, which I suppose is to be expected of an older cat, but seems to forget that she has food in her bowl or be unable to see it. For example, I will feed her, she'll have a few bites then wander off and half an hour later she's pestering me wanting food again even though there's already food in her bowl. She has also been sick a couple of times which I realise is not unusual for a cat but is unusual for her.

I have made an appointment with the vet but they are very busy and can't fit us in until next week. Just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar and if so what was the outcome? I want to be prepared if it's likely to be bad news. What are the chances it's something minor/easily treated? I am also worried that the vet will find no obvious medical cause for these symptoms and we'll just have to live with it.

Thanks. Sorry for waffling!

Anyone?

How old is your cat? I wonder if she's losing bladder control.

Also, she might be nervous and stressed with the changes with you moving house. My cat always knows when something's going on and he starts acting very strangely. If you think it might be that you can get those plug in pheromone things (can't remember the name) which are supposed to help them relax (doesn't work with ours though).

Good luck at the vets, I hope it's something minor. Could also be a UTI? Hard to say so it's good you're getting her checked.

Depending on age of cat it could be beginnings of feline dementia, could be stress or could be uti.

Is she straining or passing blood when weeing? If so get to vet ASAP as uti can be v serious.

If elderly then dementia is v common and your vet can advise.

If you've ruled out physical illness or pain then it is stress related, in which case this website has lots of advice to help

Thank you for replying. Sorry I haven't responded, been having some problems with our internet connection.

She is sixteen, so getting on in years. No blood in her urine and doesn't appear to be straining. Also when she does go it is quite a large amount. As I understand it, with a UTI they struggle to empty their bladder so tend to go little and often. I have noticed she's drinking more than usual (and eating less, although she's never been a big eater) but not sure if that's relevant.

We haven't started packing the house up yet as we haven't managed to find a buyer. We have had a few viewings but that's about it (I suspect the smell of cat wee won't be helping) so not sure if that would have been enough to unsettle her to.such an extent.

It seems like a daft way to describe a cat but she's become very emotional. She cries a lot, she doesn't like being on her own all of a sudden, she gets aggressive for no reason. I did wonder about dementia. I will ask the vet if its a possibility.

She scratched my daughter again this morning. I've been trying to keep them separated and I could have sworn I'd shut the living room door but must not have shut it completely as she got in while I was changing DD's nappy. She walked over and took a swipe at her (a big scratch on her arm) before I could stop her.

I really hope the vet has some answers for us tomorrow because we can't carry on like this.

Not daft at all.

My cat has been very emotional recently too, turns out he has worms so has been feeling under the weather. The emotional changes were my first alert to it.

You sound like an attentive cat owner so whatever it is I'm sure you've caught it fairly early.

Hi - from the sounds of it something like dementia would make sense. There's some info about it here that might be useful. My little girl had it at 16, she would sit in the road and cry and forget where she lived.

The vet should be able to advise. You're right that if she's passing lots of urine it will not be uti - with that they strain and just a drop comes out.

For the urine smell try simple solution. It dissolves the smell particles completely. I use it when mine had their spraying habit and it works.

You sound like a good cat owner, I hope your kitty is ok x

Oh and drinking more could be sign of kidney issues or hyperthyroidism - I would mention this when you visit vet so vet can check everything is working properly.

Here's another page that might help - common issues with older cats

www.bluecross.org.uk/1957-2762/health-issues-with-the-older-cat.html

I'm following this with interest as we had a similar issue with our cat who is 15. She had a couple of incontinent episodes on my DDs bed. It was as if she did it either while asleep or just resting, but def not standing up. She also drinks a lot of water. Anyway we had bloods done and all is fine, but, of course she is old and we have to expect that she may lose her health.

Fuddleduck - you sound like a very caring cat owner. Good luck at the vet.

Thank you all for your kind and helpful replies. Will be mentioning all the potential issues you've highlighted to the vet tomorrow. Will let you all know how we get on.

I just can't believe she's managed to scratch DD again, I feel so guilty for failing to prevent it. Then I also feel guilty about the cat as I'm constantly having to shoo her away because I can't trust her around DD. Having to keep them separate all the time is starting to get really stressful.

Back from the vets. Apparently she has lost a lot of weight (you can't tell by looking at her as she's so fluffy) since her last check up. The vet said she thinks the two most likely explanations for her symptoms would be Kidney disease or an overactive thyroid. She said that neither of those are curable but one is treatable with medication, I forget which way round it was now as I was a bit upset. They have taken some blood but we won't get the results until Tuesday.

I feel so anxious about it all. Even if she does have the treatable one I am worried about how we will afford the medication. Today's consultation and blood test alone cost £190 which is such a lot of money to us.

I'm sorry to hear about your cat.

I had a cat that had kidney disease. My vet said that if he could stabilise her we could consider transplant but obviously there are ethical issues surrounding that. Unfortunately, she just wasn't stable enough so had to be put to sleep. I think I probably would have though if I'd had the chance as I was devastated when she died.

My mum had a cat with hyper thyroid. She seemed to live quite a few years in medication - she was well into her twenties when she did eventually die. I don't think it took too long to stabilise either - so hopefully it's "just" that.

I'm dreading my 15 year old cat getting ill. He's been my oldest cat so far so I really feel for you.

Just thought I'd do a quick update for anyone interested. Blood results are back and the good news is she doesn't have kidney disease or an overactive thyroid. The bad news is they don't know what's wrong with her

They have only ruled out those two conditions so the vet said they can't exclude the possibility of cancer or dementia. The vet wants to do more tests. I am very torn about this as we simply can't afford to keep paying out hundreds of pounds for tests that may not even give us any answers. We have already had to dip into our savings (money that we have put aside to enable us to move house as the area we are living in isn't the safest and no decent schools for DD) for the blood tests. I don't know what to do for the best.

Hi do you have insurance? Pet plan are great and have paid out hundreds for my boy with recurrent cystitis.

Im sorry the cause hasn't been found yet :(

We don't have pet insurance at the moment. Wishing we did now! Would any company be willing to insure her now though given that she's elderly and appears to be unwell? We pay a monthly fee for some kind of plan with the vet so the £190 we've just paid for a blood test was actually a discounted price!

You can but try! Phone a couple and see. Some do cover older animals but it may now be a pre existing condition. But to be a pre existing condition they'd need to know what it is and you don't know that yet