Elton suddenly peeing on sofa

[Puppylucky]

Hello all I'm in need of some help. After being the best and cleanest boy since he arrived Elton has suddenly started peeing on one particular cushion on our sofa. It's not a health problem ( had a urine test cleared by the vet) it's behavioural and I just don't know what to do. We have had the sofa deep cleaned, use enzyme sprays and I've also got puppy pads and covers down and moved his litter so it's next to the sofa but no dice. I suspect it's marking behaviour as he does one pee on it a day ( the rest of the time he either uses the litter or goes outside) and tends to do it in the middle of the night when he won't be disturbed. If I do catch him at it he hops off and pees normally in the litter. We are at our wits end so if anyone has any ideas please share - cat tax attached

Can you keep him out of the room with the sofa?

You could try tin foil (though when I tried it on my worktops my last cat just sat on the foil...).

You could try adding another litter tray maybe with different litter (he may have a preference).

Puppy pads may make things worse as they are impregnated with a pheromone to get dogs to pee on them which can also attract cats! It's possible these are counteracting the enzyme treatment.

Oh my goodness @MiGataCalico thank you so much that's really helpful. Puppy pads out the door then!

Are you sure it’s not stress? Something could have upset him outside (or inside) and freaked him out. One of mine used to pee by the back window after another cat came to sit there.

Cystease and a fine grain litter like ultraclumping.

Thanks all. It's really odd behaviour, as during the day he will pee in the litter or outside, but his regular 2am pee is now conducted on the sofa. I quite often wake up when he goes downstairs for it, as he sets the water fountain off and if I catch him squatting he will hop off and pee in the litter as normal. It's obviously (I think) some form of spraying but I am at a loss as to how to solve it.

I wonder if something spooked him overnight (another cat outside, maybe?) and he's trying to mark his territory.

This! Can you shut curtains at night so he can’t see anything outside? Leave a radio on low too

I think you might be on to something @faerietales and @Icebreakhell - he loves spying out of the window and will cry to have the shutters open so we have been leaving one block open all night. Maybe he has seen something ( our next door neighbour mentioned we have a local fox) that has freaked him .Will try the closed shutters and music tonight - thank you so much!

Hopefully you get it sorted! We had similar with ours and we managed to fix it with a combination of Simple Solution in the spot he peed, and moving his bed so he could sleep away from the window.

Quick update - based on something I read on an earlier thread on the same problem, we tried physically blocking the sofa by putting dinner plates down on the seats along with closing the shutters. It worked last night at least, as when I sneaked down as he was having his late night wee, he had ignored the sofa completely and was neatly peeing in the litter tray. Let's hope it continues! Thanks for all the support.

Feliway plug in can honestly work miracles
I used to know when ours had run out as cat would start weeing in kids school shoes again !

This came up under ‘active threads’ and I was a bit 😱😱 til I saw it was headed ‘The litter tray’. As you were …

@pudmyboy I just wanted to give you a special thank you for always turning up and supporting Elton and me! I really appreciate it x