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Once a cat starts to mark/pee, do they always do it?
We moved into a house where the previous tenants had 18 (!!!!) cats and apparently didn't care if they used a litter box or not. The carpets were replaced before we moved in, however, the cat urine must have gone all the way down into the subfloor. My male cats are now starting to pee in the spots that we think the other cats did.
We have shampooed the carpet, and just had it professionally done. The cats are still marking.
I am making an appointment for them to see if there is something medically wrong with them. I am wonder though, now that they have started this behavior, will they continue it, even if there is nothing medically wrong with them? What if we replace the carpet and seal the subfloor...will they start marking again because they have got into this habit?
I don't know what to do anymore. Part of me is leaning towards finding them a new home.
Re: Once a cat starts to mark/pee, do they always do it?
Honestly, this makes me incredibly sad.
As someone who has two (2) cats who previously marked/peed in the house, I can say no, they don't always do it once they've started. One of my two peeing cats was dumped in the shelter as a senior because her owners didn't want to deal with her. It's depressing.
If it's in the subfloor, yes, something will have to be done, but I'm not sure how to fix that. Hopefully someone else can chime in.
Other things to try, all things that we tried when we were having our issues:
Feliway
Rescue Remedy
Add a litter box
Try Cat Attract litter
Clean with an enzymatic cleaner.
Vet visit to make sure it isn't medical (this should be the number 1 thing you do)
Remove all carpet and replace with hardwood/laminate/tile
Put the cats in one room to "retrain" them to the box
Ask about antianxiety meds for the cats, if the vet thinks it's behavioral. Mine are on fluoxetine. It has saved my house. And sanity.
Snow!
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DSnow!
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DThere are a lot of good tips in the Pets Board FAQ. See my sig or the green box at the top of the board.
To answer your question, most cats can be retrained not to mark. If you 1) remove the lingering smell (which is a very powerful sign telling them to pee there), 2) rule out any medical causes (good on you for doing this first!), 3) address any potential behavioral causes like stress or territorial issues related to the box, you should be able to fix the problem. Worst case scenario, you may need to retrain the problem cat by confining them to a smaller space for a time until they can be trusted in the full house again.
And I'm not going to harp on this, but think about it realistically: how many people want to adopt a cat with known inappropriate elimination issues? Re-homing is not a very realistic option. It would be better to focus on fixing the problem.
Good luck! If you have any more questions after reading the FAQ, feel free to come back and ask us.
"The hardest thing is to live richly in the present without letting it be tainted out of fear for the future or regret for the past." - Sylvia Plath
My cat marked the first month we had him. We did kitty behavioral boot camp and he's done it maybe once or twice in the five years we've had him since. Check out the FAQs at the top of the page,. they have lots of good advice for how to prevent marking.
I'd get a blacklight flashlight on Amazon and douse everything in nature's miracle. It would wig me out that there was undiscovered cat urine lurking in my house.
Ditto Tobio and Kell. And it's always a good idea to get litter box changes checked out by your vet, which you said you are doing.
Our 2 newest boys (we think) began marking on our bed when they were first integrated full time into our house. This is gross to begin with, but add in the fact that I'm pregnant and cat pee smells 1000 times worse, it was really not something I wanted to be dealing with. But, we did get it to stop.
It is vitally important to clean the areas with an enzymatic cleaner. I don't think carpet shampoo will do that. We used Nature's Miracle, but there are other ones out there. Anytime we found pee, we soaked the areas in NM, even the mattress, just to be sure. And when I say soaked, I mean we dumped way more than we thought we needed to on the mattress just to be sure. There are directions on the bottle for washing clothes/sheets that have been peed on. We followed those to clean the sheets/duvet, etc. When it continued, we also made sure to change our Feliway diffusers. Feliway is a synthetic version of a calming cat pheromone, and I believe it works well for our guys. We also used the spray on our bed daily for quite some time. Then, we went to spraying the bed every other day. Knock on wood, we have been pee free for a while now.
In addition to the NM and Feliway, I would suggest making sure your cats have vertical space where they can feel safe. It sounds very likely, though, that they are reacting to the previous owners' cats.
We have also had to retrain one of our cats on the litter box after she had a UTI. She continued to pee outside the box after it was cleared up. Again, it sounds like this is an issue related to the previous owners.
I swear I remember someone on MM had to have the sub floor replaced because they bought a house where cat pee had gotten down to that level.
We get the Feliway on Amazon; it's way cheaper there. Just a heads up, though, the diffusers take about a month to kick in and you may need more than one depending on the size of your home.
GL!
5 cats. 1 baby.