My boyfriend and I have had our 3 yr. old cat now for a almost three weeks.
We love her. She is beautiful, sweet, fun and loving. I want to keep her forever.
However, we are all of a sudden within the past couple of days having problems with her peeing on our furniture. She has officially peed on our couch and bed twice.
She won't go on the couch if we put tin foil on it, but who wants to always have tin foil on their couch and not be able to sit on it?
Scrubbing the couch after these accidents and trying to get the strong pee stain out is not picnic either.
It's like having a child that pees the bed. We love her, but it's hard not to get frustrated with her and wonder why all of a sudden she is doing this.
I talked to the breeder and we found out that she has done this before. This is something I would have liked to have been told when I asked if there was anything I needed to know about her. Now I am attached to her and want to keep her and have to make a decision to see if we can break her of this habit.
We don't want to have to deal with this forever.
We took her to the vet and he said this could be a fixation with urinating on soft or squishy surfaces and she may never be broken of the habit. If this is the case, we may have to take her back. We can't have her peeing all over everything all the time.
She was supposed to bring me joy. I understand animals are not perfect. I know they can have accidents, but if we can't prevent her from going on our furniture, that's not a good thing.
The vet said there is a slight chance she had some white blood cells that could mean she has a bladder infection. We bought her medicine for this, and have only given it to her one day so far.
So I guess there is a chance that we just need more time for it to work in her system, and then maybe she will stop going on the furniture.
But we have to keep our bedroom door shut now.
It's probably for the best since my b/f is has pet allergies, and even though he doesn't have a reaction to her, we read that it is best to keep them out of the bedroom.
But it's different that she literally can't go in there because if she does she will pee on the bed.
I was so upset at the idea of possibly have to return her that I felt sick last night and couldn't sleep.
I am waiting to hear back from the breeder to see if there is honestly a chance that she might be able to be broken of this habit, but from everything we have read about this on the internet, it doesn't seem likely to happen.
Next time we might have to consider getting a kitten who can be shaped to fit into our lifestyle.
I wanted to get her a month sooner when she was supposed to be available for us to bring her home, but they waited to schedule her spay, therein causing us to have to wait a month for her hormone levels to drop so my b/f wouldn't have an allergic reaction to her.
We got her so close to Thanksgiving, that there is a chance the stress from driving her back and fourth from Pittsburg, to my mom's to our apt, then back to my moms and back home again over Thanksgiving break, she may have become so stressed that it has caused her to have this problem.
I just don't get why she didn't do it when we first brought her home?
My b/f believes it is because she is more comfortable here now, but I don't know if people really can pin point why cats do this.
It could be a bladder infection, it could be stress, it could be a soft material fixation. Either way, our cat is urinating in our house and I thought this was something that wouldn't happen if she was supposed to have been litter trained and spayed.
I had heard many stories about how hard it is to have an older cat adjust to a new living situation, but I just thought that mean they wouldn't be very friendly at first, not that they would have potty problems.
We have tried to spray a "No-Stress" spray which is the generic for a more expensive brand called "Rescue Remedy" where the natural herbal scents are supposed to be calming for cats and prevent them from wanting to go outside of the litter box, but we have sprayed it multiple times everyday and she has had accidents since. We also used it in her carrier on the ride home after Thanksgiving weekend, and she cried the entire two hour car ride.
That was the worst car ride we have had with her. She was much better the day we brought her home. Maybe she was in shock then?
Tomorrow we are going to the pet store to buy a spray that is supposed to keep them off furniture, which might prevent her from getting on it to have an accident in the first place. The only thing is, I don't think these are accidents. I think she is doing it on purpose.
She doesn't act mad at us. She follows us around the house, plays with us, eats well, and sits on our lap. She is always purring and lays around like she isn't stressed at all. So, I'm not sure what the culprit might be.
There is also another spray we are going to try before we would consider giving her back, and it is supposed to put attracting scent pheromones around her litter box to make her want to use it.
But besides that, we are not sure what else we can do if she simply likes going on squishy surfaces like our bed and couch. We might have to consider getting a couch cover, and some stronger cleaner.
The smell of cat pee is not easily removed. So if anyone has any good cleaning products that they have tried and liked, please let me know.
If anyone has heard of this happening before, or has any experience with it, let me know what the result was.
If you were in our situation, what would you do?
I love her so much and the thought of having to take her back makes me sick and breaks my heart, but I don't know if we can break her of this habit and we are not willing to live with an animal that we paid a lot of money for because of her hyper allergenic problems, only to have her ruin our furniture.
Maybe writing my research paper will get my mind of this for a while.
I have a paper I have to finish tonight, a final exam to write and finish tomorrow, and then sunday through tuesday I am studying for my last finals. I can't wait to go home and see my friends over x-mas break, but I am hoping I will not have to return our cat at that time.
If you click on the comment button below, you can leave me a message.
I would really appreciate any help I can get with this situation.
Giving her back is our last resort.
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