What can I do to stop my cat peeing?!

[CatPeeIssues]

I really need some advice. I have a 1.5 year old ragdoll. He has started weeing on rugs, cushions and beds (not spraying, full on wee).

I work from home so he has loads of attention/ play / fuss, but over the last couple of months, he has peed where he shouldn't around 12-15 times.

He has access to 3 litter trays. I empty them at least twice a day. He still does some wees in there, so I don't think it is litter related.

He has never had any issues with training. Even as a kitten he never had accidents. The only other time he did this was when we were away for a week and had a cat sitter - so it could be stress related.

We have taken him to the vet and he cannot find an issue with his bladder. He put him on a special diet for a month, but it has not made any difference.

We have another ragdoll (his brother) and they do sometimes fight, but overall, they get on fairly well.

Sorry for the essay! Has anyone had success dealing with anything like this. I'm not sure what I can do to try and stop him from doing it.

Any suggestions?

No real ideas op. Could you try spraying Feliway around. It's meant to give a cat happy pheromones I think so helps them not feel as stressed. If it helps them it might show your cat is stressed for some reason. Has anything else changed in your household?

Feliway plug ins. Stopped our kitten peeing overnight.

Does he go outside? If not, could you try letting him out?

Thanks everyone. I should have said, I've tried the Feliway plug-in and spray.

He isn't bothered about going outside. If I'm in the garden / going to the car, he might come out and sit on the front step to find the sun - but he's not bothered about exploring.

Which litter is he on? Indoor paws don’t like rough litters.

https://www.feliway.co.uk/products/cystease?variant=46525690577174

You could try this. Helped our cat

We tried that after the plug in thing didn't help at all

Has he been neutered?

When you say he fights with his brother, do you mean proper fights with fur flying and blood? I wonder whether he'd be happier on his own.

Thanks again.

Yes, he has been neutered.

I don't think it could be the litter, as he still goes in there several times a day. Just not always!

I'll order some of those capsules. I'm going to try everything I can!

We hate going to bed / going out because we don't know what we're going to come back to😔

The fights: yes to fur flying at times. No blood / scratches. Generally very short lived (a couple of minutes), then back to friendly with each other.

I'd hate to give one of them up and my DD would be devastated.

How do you know if they would be happier apart?

Ragdolls love company so much - that's why we got two.

Such a hard decision!

If it's stress weeing (not saying it is) these biscuits might help

www.royalcanin.com/uk/cats/products/vet-products/calm-3955

They have really helped our girl cat. Might be worth a try

Few had similar. It took a combined approach:

Moving litter box to somewhere he felt comfortable. He didn’t like feeling “cornered”. So somewhere he could have multiple routes of entry/exit.

We also put a screen/room divider a bit in front of the box as he prefers privacy. For a while we did “toilet guard”. So if he went to his box, we would stand close by, not looking at him but “keeping watch”. Once he got relaxed about going to the loo he didn’t need it anymore but it helped him feel safe, like no other animal was going to attack him whilst he was indisposed.

Feliway plug-in- the feliway friends one worked best for us. This might help with the fights. Our cat was getting stressed seeing other cats outside and we think that was part of the peeing elsewhere.

Feliway cystease capsules

Some more good suggestions, thanks.

The vet suggested that Royal Canin food, so I might give it a try. (They generally don't like Royal Canin - they're very fussy!)

There are quite a lot of other cats outside. I hadn't thought that might be bothering him. They do fight a lot as well, so they can be very noisy.

Has anyone tried anti depressants for their stressed cat?

If they go back to normal afterwards then I would be less concerned.

I wonder if the cats outside are triggering it - we have three neutered boys who never fight normally, but we've had two incidents over the years where cats in the garden have triggered some upset and caused a fight between two of them (a different two each time).

Could you maybe try putting privacy film on the windows so that they can't see what's going on outside?

The only thing that worked for us was foil around the areas they’d targeted before. They don’t like the feel of it on their paws so won’t stand on it. That only helps if they keep going back to the same places though.

Have you had him checked for a UTi by the vet? This often causes rogue peeing and they can check for it easily.

Also you ideally need 2 trays per cat so if you have three I'm afraid you need one more.

Where do you have them located? As a PP said, they don't like to feel cornered (although we like to hide the trays away).

My old cat suffered with this from time to time and we had some herbal tablets we used to put in her food, they helped. Cats are super sensitive souls and the fact your two are fighting definitely won't help at all.

I’ve had the same problem for months and nothing so far has helped. Thankfully he’s stopped weeing on the bed now but has ruined two wool duvets, I started covering the bed with a tarpaulin when we weren’t in it and that sorted it.

hes still weeing on one end of one sofa, thankfully it’s leather and now permanently has newspaper and “stuff” piled on it to put him off. Might try the foil idea.

cystease and feliway hasn’t helped. He’s an indoor cat and I’m have catio built next week to see if that helps. If nothing else it’s another spot for yet another litter tray.

Thanks again everyone.

I'll get another tray. I always thought it was 1 more than the number of cats. I didn't realise it was 2 per cat.

Yes, he is returning to the same places to pee. Does that mean anything? I initially thought it was because we hadn't got rid of the smell, so we replaced everything, but he's still going back to the same areas.

He is an incredibly sensitive cat. Needs constant reassurance.

The more I think about it, the more I think it could be the cats outside. I thought he would feel safe because they're outside and he's inside. They are really noisy when they fight and that does bother him.

Oh no @CormorantStrikesBack. Sounds like we're suffering the same problem.

I'll let you know if any of these suggestions work for me!

Is your cat very sensitive usually?

Yes he is a bit of a sensitive boy/very clingy. But I can’t understand what’s upsetting him, nothing has changed.

I did see one of those cat whisperer tv shows and someone had the same problem caused by cats outside worrying the resident cat. The cat expert said he needed lots of hiding places inside and high up shelves on the walls for climbing. It seemed to do the trick. I’m contemplating drilling cat climbing shelves all over the house!

We used CystAid capsules - just open the capsule and sprinkle onto the cats food. This was the only thing that worked for us. We can now spot the signs just before our cat has one of these “episodes” and then give her two capsules per day for the first couple of days.

Like others have said, it’s usually stress related if the vet can’t find anything physically wrong. Hope you get it sorted 🐾

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cystaid-Cats-x-30-capsules/dp/B09BJKP9YB

Thanks again everyone, this has been really helpful.

That show sounds very interesting @CormorantStrikesBack I dont suppose you remember the name of it? I'll look into getting safe places for him to hide as well.

Fingers crossed we both get it sorted!