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Can't tell carpets from litter problem.. HELP

wwittman May 04, 2004 12:15 AM

To sum it all up:
my 12 yr old Himalayan and wild cat mix has ALWAYS (since kittenhood) had a problem with urinating on carpets.
She stained all over our house then, until we moved to a place with wood floors.
All this time she used the litter boxes (there were 3 in that house) with no problem.

Later, in the wood floored houses, she would use the box perfectly; but if a carpet of any size was introduced anywhere she would urinate on it eventually. (all the while STILL USING the box)

Now we've moved to a house that is virtually ALL carpet.
Since the move she's been confined to the (carpeted) master bedroom and its en suite bath (tiled)
In that bathroom we put in a Littermaid box, filled with Cat Attract litter. And in the bedroom attached, we have a Feliway plug-in running.
We did in short everything we could think of, or that had been suggested to us, to do.
And we THOUGHT all was well.

but last week we noticed a spot of carpet that smelled like cat urine and we cleaned it with an Enzyme odour neutralizer.
Now just tonight we noticed a wet spot on the other side of the room and naturally it was urine.

My wife is at the end of her rope with this.
And I'm not far behind.

Her food is in the room, her clean, special litter is in the room attached. The room is scented with Feliway. And nothing happened tonight to stress her out.

She's been checked by the Vet (who, by the way, said these problems are often insoluble).

ANY other advice?

I still believe she simply can not TELL carpet from litter under foot. But that's not going to solve anything.

and again, through ALL of this she continues to use the litterbox and always has.

Replies (2)

DestanyF May 04, 2004 08:21 AM

Yeesh! That's a problem. Have you consulted an animal behavioralist? That's the only thing I could think to do, you pretty much did everything else I would have suggested, but I'm just a cat owner, not a vet or behavioralist or expert.

DestanyF

PHMadameAlto May 04, 2004 06:25 PM


Posted by: PHMadameAlto at Tue May 4 18:24:05 2004 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ]

Wow! What a problem! The suggestion to try an animal behaviorist is probably your best bet at this point, because she has been checked out.

She may just prefer the texture of the carpet sometimes - which is something that will be difficult to overcome. It really doesn't sound like marking behavior to me at all.

Tufts University operates a Pet-Fax animal behavior help service which works with your veterinarin for a fee. You can check this out at www.tufts.edu/vet/petfax/ - and discuss this as a possibility with your vet if s/he cannot recommend a behaviorist.

Good luck!
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Smile, it will make them wonder what you are up to!

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