When a cat starts peeing in the house, it can cause a lot of stress to the whole family. No one wants to live in a house that smells of cat pee! Read on to find out why this may be happening and what you can do to find a solution.

Why Has My Cat Started Peeing in the House?

When you think about inappropriate peeing, you may picture a male cat “spraying” or using urine to mark their territory. But inappropriate peeing can also be displayed by female cats.

Peeing in the house doesn’t always mean your cat has a “problem”. Sometimes, it can mean they’re confused about house-training, or they may be using urine (and sometimes poo too) to communicate with other pets or family members. For example, a cat may use urine to tell other cats where its territory is.

Often, urine marking occurs near doors and windows to communicate to neighbourhood cats wandering through their garden. Although this is a normal behaviour in cats, most of us find this unacceptable or “inappropriate” when it happens inside.

Sometimes, inappropriate peeing can indicate an emotional or medical problem for your cat. Hormones may be involved, as well as stress or anxiety. Any changes in the household, like the addition of children or other pets, workers in the house, or a recent holiday by the owner, may stress or confuse pets and lead to this behaviour.

Ultimately, treatment of the problem depends on the underlying cause.

Medical Causes of Inappropriate Urination

Your vet should be your first port of all if you’re worried about your cat peeing inappropriately. They can check your pet to treat or rule out medical causes of this problem. Medical problems that may cause cats to wee where they shouldn’t include:

• Diabetes, kidney disease, thyroid disease: these conditions cause increased drinking which also means pets need to wee more often. Because of this they’re more likely to get caught short if they can’t get outside or the litter box is full, so they pee outside the litterbox.
• Urinary tract infection, bladder stones, feline idiopathic cystitis, and bladder cancer: these can be very uncomfortable, and your pet may strain against the discomfort and accidentally wet themselves.
• Cognitive dysfunction syndrome: this is a type of dementia that can occur in older cats. Some pets with this condition seem to forget their house-training and can have accidents in the house.
• Seizures: cats can wee and poo while having a seizure. If you didn’t witness the episode, you may come home and find a mess on the floor without any indication that it happened during a seizure.
• Incontinence: this is the true loss of bladder (and/or bowel) control. Your pet can’t help this and may feel distressed by this lack of control. They may even have accidents of urinary incontinence while sleeping.
• Joint pain/arthritis: a cat with arthritis pain may not be able to climb into a litterbox, causing the cat to urinate outside the litterbox. They may also be unable to groom themselves properly. If hair gets covered in urine, they may be unable to clean it off and may accidentally spread it to other parts of the house as they move around.

Behavioural Causes of Inappropriate Elimination

The following behavioural factors can also be involved in causing weeing in the house…

• Litterbox aversion in cats: a cat may have this problem because:
• The litterbox isn’t clean enough.
• The litterbox is in a location your cat doesn’t like.
• Your cat may not like the type of litter.
• Your cat may prefer not to share the litterbox with other cats in the house.
• Urine marking can occur because of territorial, sexual, or other reasons.
• Stress or anxiety, including separation anxiety.
• Incomplete or poor house-training.

How Do You Stop Cats From Peeing in the House?

If the problem is a medical condition, treatment should target the underlying condition and your vet will be on hand to help. Once treated, your cat should quickly go back to their normal toileting behaviour.

For behavioural issues, there are many ways to approach treatment. Punishing your cat is never appropriate and may in fact make the situation worse, by adding to your cat’s anxiety. If a pet is marking and isn’t already spayed or neutered, having this surgery can help reduce the problem.

Cats often keep on urinating in the same place and standard detergents won’t always completely destroy the smell, so they’ll keep on marking there. It can be helpful to use special biological odour-eliminating products so you cat can’t smell the marked areas.

Many cats will only use a clean litter tray so having multiple litter trays in the house can help ensure a clean one is always available for them to use. If you have more than one cat, a litter box per cat could help in reducing the risk that any cat urinates inappropriately because the main litter box is occupied.

The type of litter can also be important as some cats prefer one type over another. You may need to try different types and see which you cat prefers. Often cats don’t like scented litters; the perfumed smells may be preventing your cat from using their litter box.

Reducing stress in your cat’s environment may help some types of inappropriate urination. It’s important they feel safe. Having an enclosed litter tray, in a quiet location, where they can have privacy away from other pets and people can help with this. Make sure the step into the tray isn’t too high for smaller or arthritic cats so they feel comfortable getting in and out of it.

If your cat is feeling threatened by another pet, try to think of ways to give them their own safe space to get away from the more dominant pet if they want to. If neighbour’s cats are coming into your home and stressing your cat out, then consider fitting an electronic cat flap so only your cat can get in.

Bear in mind that if your cat is afraid of local cats, they may not feel safe to go to the loo outside. In these cases, it may be necessary to provide a litter tray indoors, so they have this option if they don’t feel able to go outside. To discourage neighbourhood cats from approaching doors and windows, consider using a spray deterrent that’s activated by motion detectors.

Synthetic pheromone products are available from your vet in spray or plug-in diffuser forms. These products have a calming effect on many pets. If you’re still having problems, your vet will be able to refer you to a specialist feline behaviourist who will be able to advise you on other things to try.

Peeing in the house is distressing to cat owners, but it’s usually a sign that your cat is distressed too. It’s important to work with your vet to work out why your cat is peeing in the house. Whether the problem is a medical, psychological, or behavioural, it’s important to address it quickly for your sake and your cats.

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Content provided from Vetstream's Vetlexicon Felis - www.vetlexicon.com/felis

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