At my wit's end with cats' toileting issues, please help!

[Moomin729]

Hi everyone,

Apologies in advance as this could turn into a bit of an essay as quite a lot of backstory...

We've got 3 cats: 2 females aged 12 and a male aged 14. We also have 2 dogs who are 4 plus a three year old toddler.

So one of our female cats has always been sensitive to stresses even before the dogs and baby arrived eg. Sometimes if we went away to see family even if only for a weekend, she would develop a urine infection. Anyway this used to be only occasionally and never had any problems with the other two. For info, the two girls have always used litter tray whereas male cat goes outside.

About 2 years ago, the same female started urinating outside of the litter tray and there was blood in the wee so off we went to the vets who diagnosed a UTI and gave her antibiotics... to cut a very long story short, this began a 6 month saga of repeated vet visits, tests and medication as the initial 'uti' never cleared up and she continued to urinate outside of the tray with blood on and off. She had full blood works and ultrasound and nothing sinister was found. In the end the vet said it must be stress related and diagnosed her with something called pandora syndrome which is a sort of catch- all diagnosis for cats who experience repeated urinary and gastro symptoms where no particular cause can be found. Eventually after some time her symptoms seemed to improve however they have never gone away completely.

Fast forward to this year and our male cat has developed some issues... I posted about him about a month ago on here as he had both a UTI then pancreatitis and was quite unwell. He has since recovered from the pancreatitis and seems generally a lot better - has gained weight etc however he still doesn't seem himself and I expect it's stress. For a while when he was unwell, he started using the litter tray and I think this upset the sensitive female who then began toileting on the bathroom floor again.

I'm now in a situation where one or both of them are constantly pooping and urinating on the floor in front of the litter tray and it's becoming really hard to manage.
For info, we have two litter trays in different locations though within the same general area. I can't get any more litter trays or put upstairs etc because of the dogs and toddler. I try my best to clean them everyday but this seems to make no difference. It's really become a nightmare. I've also tried feliway plug ins and catnip etc and trying to play and give the cats a lot of attention but this is still continuing.

I'm not 100% sure if it's just the female cat or the male too who is now doing this as I can't keep track of them all the time but there is also sometimes blood. But they've both had full tests done and nothing sinister has come up.

I'm desperate for any advice! Thanks!

Ideally they need more trays between them. They need at least one each, preferably plus one extra.

And "try my best to clean them every day" suggests they're not cleaned every day so are probably quite unpleasant for the cats to use.

@Scampuss thanks ....
Like I said not exactly sure I can accommodate 4 litter trays.. there is no where for them to go. Also they used to have only one litter tray in the past and they didn't do this. Yes I clean them every day, there may be the odd day they don't get cleaned but obviously I'm under a lot of stress and don't have any help.
I was kind of looking for advice for why they might suddenly be behaving like this, medical issues I haven't thought of etc your response is pretty unhelpful

The thing is, the first line 'treatment' with errant toileting is to provide extra trays. You could also try different litter and different types of trays, but extra trays, even if only temporarily to see if it makes a difference, seems sensible before pursuing potential medical issues.

Weeing just outside the tray is classic stress related bladder. However big a tray you buy the wee will still be just outside.

What works for my stressy cat is:

More litter bins
Puppy pad around the bin
Feliway everywhere
Upping fluid content of diet- change to wet from dry
Metacam for pain relief at first sign of fussing around bins
Vetpro Urinary supplement

I really rate 'Cats Best Original Litter' as it's extremely good at clumping and therefore locking away the smell. It's expensive but lasts literally for months unchanged if you put a deep layer in the litter tray and remove the clumps (into the toilet) regularly. That means that if you occasionally don't manage to clear it as often as ideal it still doesn't smell and isn't off-putting to the cats.

I'd second what @Scampuss said - cats need at least one litter tray per cat.

I agree with using puppy pads under all litter trays.They really do work and take a bit of the stress way, and protect the floor.
It does sound like stress induced with 3 cats and 2 dogs.

Thanks for your advice. The thing is even with the two litter trays, they only seem to use the one. Thanks for the recommendation for litter and I will try to put more feliway plug ins everywhere. And the puppy pads is a good tip. Yes and it almost certainly is stress related just not sure how to alleviate this... I might get a couple of cat trees to give them other spaces to go

I found that cat gets stressed, it hurts to wee, cat gets even more stressed about weeing as it hurts, whole thing gets worse.

The Metacam can break the cycle.

We wondered about the Vetpro but when we stopped it the problems came back so it must be doing something.

Have you got covered litter trays? Would that help?

I was kind of looking for advice for why they might suddenly be behaving like this

I know it's probably not what you want to hear, but you do have a very busy home and the reality is that elderly cats often don't cope very well in busy households.

Three elderly cats sharing their space and resources with two dogs and a toddler is never going to be easy, unfortunately, and litter tray "issues" is often the first sign of unhappiness (and stress) in cats.

I've never had a cat like a covered tray. I've had them put up with them but they don't like them.

My stressy cat would go in and then pee out of the entrance.

One litter tray is covered, the other isn't. Yes they definitely prefer the open ones as the covered one is the one they hardly use. It's been a struggle to find a litter tray with high enough sides so that they don't just spray over the back! Perhaps I should replace the lidded one with another open one the same now that I've found one that contains the wee!
@margotrose of course you're totally right, I myself get stressed so it's hardly surprising the cats feel like that. Unfortunately the environment isn't really going to change although our daughter will get older and probably even within the next year won't be as loud! So maybe that will help. We have taught her to be very gentle with the cats and she is genuinely good with them.
I guess I just have to find ways to manage the stress as much as possible.
Thanks for all your advice