I have an old(ish) ginger tom. We got him from friends several years ago and think he's about 17. He is my little shadow, follows me around the house and gazes at me with adoration. I completely adore him back, but I'm considering giving him to a shelter as I just can't cope with the problems any more.
He's always been prone to wee-ing in various places, and any change in routine upsets him. He's also had urine infections that cause the same problems, but over the last few months we've had an escalation in problems.
So far I've spent over $1,000 at the vets. We are going to have to re-floor the entire basement at a cost of over $10,000. He has weak hips/back legs and can't manage the stairs to the basement anymore, so we now have 2 litter boxes upstairs. One is in the laundry room, one in the dining room. In spite of this he constantly pees on the carpet in the dining room floor, so that is now covered with towels and newspapers. I took him to the vet yesterday and he has another urine infection - he only got over the last one 2 weeks ago. Because of the infection his pee smells foul - far, far worse than normal cat pee.
As well as the pee problems he also has meds for his joints, his thyroid (overactive) and he's on anti-anxiety meds. Currently he's also on pro-biotics and anti-biotics.
Additionally, he loves a morning shower and often wakes me up to make this happen. He starts waking me up around 5:30. Except it's getting earlier, and the other night he kept me awake until after 3 am, at which point I cracked and gave him a shower, then finally got some sleep.
I'm sleep deprived. My entire house stinks of extra- sour & strong infected cat pee. It is going to cost us around $25,000 to get the house/floor/carpets clean and odor-free (we'll actually have to replace flooring under the carpets, not just the carpets) and he could then just ruin them all again.
There's an animal shelter near us that is a no-kill shelter. I would give them a huge donation (another $1,000 on top of how much this is costing doesn't seem like much) and I know he would be well cared for.
If my cat stays with us we're thinking we may have to keep him shut in just a few rooms (it's a big American open-plan so there are only a few places we can contain him) and only let him out when one of us isn't working and we can sit with him. This seems cruel and worse than having a shelter (where they have large play areas) taking care of him.
If I knew it was only a couple of months that this will go on, I would happily keep him, but this could be several years. Almost all my spare time and all our money is going on taking care of this cat and trying to protect our house. We have a good carpet cleaning machine and I have washed carpets constantly, but they still smell all the time as the damage is just so much.
DH (rightly) says that it will break my heart to get rid of him, but sooner or later he will die and my heart will be broken then anyway. If he goes to a good shelter (and I know this shelter, have visited/donated etc for years) at least my house can become liveable again. Am I just over-reacting to living in a fog of sour cat pee, or would you consider re-homing if this were your cat?