Indoor cat won’t stop weeing in random places

[3sausagedogs]

Help! I have two indoor Bengals. Brother and sister and had them since kittens, they are now 5! Male and female! They never spray and they go in my garden. The male cat only ever wees in the littler box, female one is awful! She will use the litter tray and she will go in my garden but I can’t stop her weeing by the front door, behind my sofa, by the back door, under my dressing table etc The littler box is on the stairs and that’s where she picked! She won’t let me move it! I put her litter out the front and back thinking it’s another animal upsetting her and it doesn’t stop her! Her litter tray is clean! I brought two and they won’t use the other one! I thoroughly clean the areas and I’ve even put foil, lemon juice and Vicks down to put her off and nothing works! We’ve been through hundreds or door mats and I’ve put puppy training mats everywhere! Nothing stops her! She was done as a kitten so I need some advice! She’s a very happy well loved cat!! She’s very spoilt!!

She needs to see a vet to rule out anything physical but inappropriate urination is one of the main signs of stress in cats.

Does she get along with her brother? Are there other pets or children in the house that she may be unhappy about?

Stress and it's also a sign of kidney disease. I doubt she'd have advanced kidney disease at her age, but as @margotrose said, get her to the vet ASAP.

I’m probably missing the point here, but if they go in the garden, they aren’t indoor cats, are they?!

Anyway, we have this problem with our year-old boy cat. He seems to forget he uses the litter tray and prefers the carpet periodically-we have to catch him when he starts circling and keep putting him on the litter tray. I have no real advice (lots of sympathy!) but wanted to say that the enzyme stuff from Amazon is really good at getting rid of the smell.

The Bengals I know have really large territories, they roam areas a couple of miles wide. They are not like normal domestic cats, particularly if their parents weren’t gene checked prior to breeding. I suspect if she had free access to the outdoors this problem would resolve.

But ask a vet to check for disease.

Thank you for your replies. She has a harness and she scratches to go outside, she has a lead so she can roam the whole garden. She can go outside when she likes but they are indoor cats. They don’t like the rain, wind, the noise of cars, other cats etc and if they go off the lead they don’t disappear. She is territorial, more than her brother! He’s soft as anything! If another cat comes into the garden she goes for them!! I took her to the vet and they charged me £60 to say not sure! No she loves my daughters and seeks them out all the time for permanent strokes etc and she doesn’t mind her brother. I think it’s habit

Most inappropriate urination is down to illness, physical pain or something upsetting in their environment.

If she's had a clean bill of health, including a head to toe MOT to check for pain and blood/urine tests to check for illness and infection, then I would start to look at her environment rather than just assuming it's habit.

I've had a couple of cats who have had issues with inappropriate toileting and both times it resolved when we changed their environment.

What did you change in their environment? Can you have me any ideas of things I could or should change?

The main thing we found that made a difference was cat furniture and lots of places "up high" for them to sit. We have a cat tree with various "shelves" and baskets for them to sit in, boxes in high places for them to sleep in, and several empty shelves and surfaces for them to jump on.

We have three cats now (all boys) and they all like to be up high - currently one is asleep on the fridge, one in an old Amazon box on the dining table and the other is in the little basket thing on the cat tree. Separate spaces helps as well - they do like to snuggle but they seem happier when they can have their own area too.

Clean litter trays and using the right litter helped too. We used to use wood pellets but one of ours really didn't like them - we now use a finer, corn based litter that's softer on their paws.

Thank you for the suggestions x She likes it on top of my boiler now the heating is on!! And here brother can’t fit up there so maybe she will like that!! And we’ve found a box to put somewhere for her

Has she always done it? Where did you get them from? If she’s always done it then it sounds like she may not have been litter trained properly by the person you got her from. If it’s a recent thing - you’re actually meant to have the number of cats plus one for litter trays so you could try a third one, how often do you clean them? She could have a UTI or kidney problem worst case but unlikely due to age. Stress is the other thing so you could try Feliway plug-ins but I never found them that effective. Really unhelpful for your vet to say they don’t know, did they test her urine for infection?

I may see a different vet to see if they are more helpful. She’s always done it. I’ve tried extra litter boxes and she won’t use them, she will wee next to them if I put them where she was choosing to wee. Litter box cleaning makes no different to her. If I clean it every day she still wees elsewhere and if I let it get dirty so it smells of her she still goes elsewhere! I want to replace my carpets so I want to try to sort her out before that! I brought both cats from a breeder. She owned both the female and male cat and they were all proper loved pets. Her kids played with all the cats so they have always been in a family environment. She can only eat one type of food as she has an allergy. It’s what the vet and her breeder recommended and used

If she's always done it and lives with a sibling I do wonder if she's being a bit territorial which is very common with bengals. They're not the same as your average moggie and many aren't suited to multi-cat homes no matter what their original environment was like.

Being indoors may not help either - I know she has garden access but bengals are very close to their wild ancestry any don't always settle without a large area to "claim" as their own.

Different cat litter or have they changed the' product?? I am no expert but watched Jackson Galaxy's My Cat from Hell, and a number of cats did not like the litter used. They can be very fussy.