The joy of pet ownership
We used to have two cats. One died last year, and after a few months we went out and got two more cats. Since the surviving cat from the first pair is stupid even for a cat, we made some fairly elaborate preparations so that her tiny little feline brain wouldn't go pop, including setting down a new kitty litter box close to where she would go downstairs and cower.
This proved to be a bit of a mistake. Dorrie has taken to peeing right over the edge of the kitty litter box, which is bad enough in our (100-year-old) tiled bathroom, but we put the cowering kittybox in a corner of our dining room. On our 100 year old oak floor, which had survived such indignaties as 35 years of being a student slum for Reedies. So, after a few days of having to wipe up pee from the hardwood floor, we snapped and moved the kittybox upstairs to the EXACT SAME PLACE IT HAD BEEN FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS PREVIOUSLY.
So, did the cat stop peeing downstairs? Fuck, no; during the day, Dorrie sleeps in one of the upstairs closets, but her new routine is to get up, go downstairs (past two kittyboxes), PEE ON THE FLOOR, then come back upstairs and go back into her little den.
I'm not sure who started propagating the myth that cats are tidy, but it's obviously someone who has never lived around cats. The oak floor in that corner of the living room is, of course, ruined (you'd normally think that this would take years, but the cat is like clockwork; she pees on the floor three times a day every day, and half the pee soaks into the wood before we come along and try to clean it up), and if we ever want to sell the house we're going to have to hire someone to come in to saw out and replace about a square meter or so of nice old oak (ditto, of course, if we want to keep the house and have a dining room that doesn't smell like cat urine.
Our summerhouse? I was thinking about nice bamboo or hardwood scrap flooring, but I'm now thinking about a single sheet of stainless steel, 7x10 meters with a 1 meter lip. The stupid cat will pee on it, of course, but at least we'll be able to bring in a firehose and wash it away without being stuck with the smell forever.)
Maybe it's time to cage the backyard and hurl all of the cats out there.
Comments
David does exaggerate slightly (hard to imagine, I know), and I’m optimistic this is just a temporary pain in the neck, but cleaning up cat pee is not really my favorite part of the morning routine, that’s for sure.
Hi -
Change in litter box habits (i.e. peeing on things) is often a sign of kitty stress. Losing her original cat friend and then having her space invaded by a couple of young upstarts is really stressful for a cat. Cats are also very territorial, so this behavior makes sense from a cat perspective.
I would recommend seeing your vet for some stress-relieving products. A friend of mine had great success with a medicated cat-valium ear cream and a plug-in “cat appeasing pheromone” disperser. She also made sure that her cat had a space to herself and her own litter box that the other cats could not use.
I think you should buy another litter box to put in the spot she is peeing. You could also cover the floor in that area with aluminum foil - cats hate that.
And consider yourself at least somewhat lucky - my friend’s cat was peeing on her bed!
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David, Thanks for putting my current cat problem in perspective. My darling Sydney has decided that the sink in the “guest” bath is a great place for her daily bowel movement. I reconciled myself to this by convincing myself that at least that sink gets cleaned WELL every day, so it is the cleanest sink in the house despite Sydney. Sometimes all it takes is hearing someone else’s story.