Cat weeing and pooing around the house.

[SilveryMoon]

I have 2 indoor cats.
Tilly came to us about 3 weeks ago from a friend who wasn't really looking after her properly
She settled in well and gets on with my existing cat as well as can be expected (they play, but fight occasionally, they follow each other around, neither one has hurt the other, they share food bowls and litter trays even though I bought new ones for Tilly)
Anyway, Tilly knows where the litter tray is, she has been using it, but she is also pooing on the floor next to the tray and she pooed over the bottom of my living room curtains.
I get up this morning and she has peed on my bed!
What can I do to help her exclusively use the litter tray?
I did take the 2nd litter tray away because both cats were using both tray's but maybe I should put it back?

her poo is also really runny. I put it down to the stress of the move, but it's been over 3 weeks now and I expected to see signs of it getting better.

1. get Tilly checked by a vet. Weeing/pooing in unusual (usually soft...like the bed) places is a sign Tilly's in pain, the runny poos could be stress, but could be a virus etc...so def. get her checked out.
2. 3 weeks is still very early days for cat intros, have a look at this page from CatChat. Sage advice on introducind a new furrbaby to the home. Also, invest in some feliway (a diffuser - this is as cheap as I've seen them, but most vets have them if you want it today) - might help with all the furry-friends stresses whilst they work things get sorted.
3. Some cats just like to poo in one tray and wee in another. The rule is generally 1 tray per cat, per floor of the house and 1 over...and they should be cleaned daily and scooped often if indoor cats. Don't use bleach to clean or anything like dettol/dettox to clean the trays as bleach smells like wee to cats and anything that clouds when added to water, like dettol is toxic to cats (and usually fairly strongly scented - see below).
4. Again, have a read of CatChat's pages on toileting and spraying.
5. A common thing to trigger behavioural weeing is scents - esp citrus scents and bleach, as these smells like wee to cats. Plug ins, strong perfumes, deoderants, fabric conditioners, anything with a strong scent might trigger weeing. Will be difficult to narrow it down with a new cat mind you...but something to think about.

Once you've ruled out hierachies and illness, you can assume it's behavioural...there are things that can be done (I have an anxious weer)...the guys on the CatChat forums are so friendly and helpful, so you can always pop over to us/them there and see if they can help...forums. It's also worth using the forums search function. If you want a good search term try "weeing" and if you're interested in how I 'solved' my furbaby's issues (he will still wee if stressed) then try adding "gadget" to the search.

Washing tips...wash/soak the linens in biological washing liquid. Products like Simple Solution work well. The urination link has some remedies on it too...and the guys on the forums have plenty of tips.

I hope Tilly's ok and you get some relief.

Thank you so much for your reply. Will def be looking at the forum pages!
I've told dp that I'd like him to get her to the vet during the week when he is not at work.
The poo does concern me, there is a lot of it from such a small cat! I think she was very mistreated at her last home.
My friend asked how she was getting on and she was very suprised when I told her that Tilly likes to sit on me, will happily allow the ds's to stroke her and often sleeps on ds's bed.
Poor Tilly was terrorized by my friends children
We will do whatever we can to make sure she is happy, so I will be ordering the plug-in and will def get her checked over by our vet.
Thanks again for the reply and the links.
Very helpful

No problem. Just hope Tilly's ok and settles in more. It's a good sign that she's coming to you for sits/attention.
It might be worth looking at her diet if her poos don't get better. I know my boys are a lot less smelly and a lot happier on a low cereal diet. Foods like Orijen look expensive, but because they have a higher quantity of meat cats actually tend to eat less than they do other dry foods, and it certainly makes a difference to their tummies. Mine get a combiantion of wet and dry (as despite what IAMS claim, cats do not tend to seek out sources of water, or certainly not enough). A good wet is Butcher's Classic cat (morrison's and waitrose def. stock it, as do pets at home), Bozita. In fact zooplus have a fairly good variety of grain-free foods.
Anyway, all stuff to think about post-vet check. They guys on the forums will all certainly give advice on foods, and there's usually someone that's seen a condition/ailment before, so if Tilly does have a health issue, def. ask them for advice.

Thank you.
She is on the same brand of food here as she was at her old home, she just probably isn't used to eating out of a clean bowl.
Both my cats are on dry food at the moment and I normally give them 1 wet meal a week (normally on a friday when we all get a little treat)

We had a cat die last year from some sort of UTI, the vet said it was because I had changed tghe litter.
Hoping Tilly is ok, don't want to go through losing another cat, my ds's still talk about the one who died (my ds's are now 4yrs and 3yrs old)

Tilly seems well in herself. She is still running around and coming to us, she is eating and drinking, so fingers crossed all signs that she is healthy.

She's just done it again!
Gggrrrrrr

She's just done it again!
Gggrrrrrr

:( Cats are very good at hiding pain. My Gizzy had hideously bad teeth thanks to some stupid advice from the vet...needed 4 out and must have been in agony the poor thing, but was acting normal until a few days before he saw the vet.

Some cats will be entirely fine on dry food, and if your furbabies aren't showing any signs of illness, then great! It's cetainly less smelly than wet food!

How strange for a vet to say that the litter was the cause of the UTI. It could well be a change in litter, or something the tray was cleaned with, made your furbaby not want to wee in that tray, but, well, they'll usually secretly wee somewhere. Still losing a furbaby's devistating regardless of how.

You'll get there with Tilly. It's still early days for introducing a new cat. She could just be trying to scent areas she considers "hers" by weeing on/around them.

We had this problem and the only cure we've found is to restrict access to upstairs and at night both cats are locked in the kitchen which is nice and warm with blankets which they can lie on etc, food, water and the cat flap so they can go outside. Found that any change to the house sets our old lady (pickle) off again so we are more strict at these times. Currently cats are allowed more freedom due to not pooing .

Thanks again.
Oscar has always had the run of the house with no problems and I don't want to restrict one and not the other iyswim.
Gonna try and get her to the vet today.
The only room I can close off is the bathroom, but it's cold in there :-(
Will see what vet says, really hope she's not poorly.

Perfect reason to treat ourselves to a new mattress and duvet though. Every cloud and all that ;-)

Perfect reason to treat ourselves to a new mattress and duvet though. Every cloud and all that ;-)

you could try getting one of these for matress protection...protector...cheaper than a new matress every time!
got one in case my waters broke in bed...they broke by the side. but as we're co-sleeping it's still on in case of pukes.

We had this with our 2 rescue Siamese...one of them kept peeing on our bed which was awful and I had to keep replacing the bedding.

It seemed that their hierarchy had been slightly messed up when they arrived and a great Mner told me to work out which cat was peeing and then make the other cat into a higher status cat....then it stopped! Like magic.

The one who was peeing was very nervous and kept trying to assert himself or establish his place over his brother...by biting his back etc nd by peeing on the bed.

We began giving the non pissy cat more attention and shortly after that the peeing stopped.

Of course we cuddle bothe cats but always one before the other.

Oooooohhhhh, AwkwardMary, that's interesting.
Tilly is trying to be dominate over Oscar and as far as I can tell, Oscar is allowing it (much like mine and dp's relationship)
Oscar has never been big on human contact and has always mostly kept to himself quite happily.
He does often come to sit/lay with me, but leaves if you go to stroke him.
Although, now I think of it, he has not slept on the bed with me since Tilly got here, so maybe it's time to gently increase his human contact?

Yes...and try to get him to sleep on your bed again...and gently sove Tilly out a bit iyswm......but they're not like dogs in that you can feed one befor the other so it's a bit tricky really...I told the pissy one off getly when he tried the back biting etc...and he got the message.