Morning, just after any advice or suggestions that people might have to help manage anxiety in our cat. She’s an older lady, about 16 years old, and has gone through some stressful times in the past few years, with the arrival of 3 year old DD a few years ago and the loss of our other cat last year, neither of which we can undo unfortunately.
Her anxiety has manifested itself over the past 6 months or so into peeing & soiling in various places round the house which, as you can imagine, is just awful. She also has what we've called “stress wees” which are little puddles with a bit of red jelly-like substance in them. She’s been checked over repeatedly by the vets (blood & urine tests) and they have diagnosed stress related bladder problems which can’t be treated as such as there’s no bacteria or infection to get rid of.
We have calming drops to go in her food and a feliway plug-in along with 2x litter trays, and we’ve also put some steps & a cat bed up high on the wall in a quiet room for her to escape to. DD is great with her, basically keeps out of her way apart from the occasional tiny stroke however none of this seems to make any difference in terms of whether we do it or not. Yesterday for example, she pee’d on the doormat, took a poop in the bedroom, then strolled into the garden, caught a tiny mouse and let it go in the dining room just to compound matters 🤦🏻♀️
DD is going to school next year and I’m sure she’ll want to start having friends round - I really don’t want to risk kids labelling her early on with the stigma of “Little Clinky’s house smells of cat wee” but I’m utterly at a loss of how to help the cat further. She’s otherwise healthy & eats well, is affectionate, and runs around & plays with bugs in the garden.