How do you stop your cat from using your bed as a litter box?
Monday, February 8th, 2010 at
6:17 am
My 8 year-old cat has had a few urinary tract infections, during which he would go to the bathroom in front of his litter box. However, lately he has been using my BED as a litter box, and I am getting really tired of washing my sheets every single day. Any ideas on why he’s doing this? I clean his litter box every day, just in case that’s why he’s not using it. Thank you!
Filed under: Cat Bed
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Take him to the vet & get him checked again. Ask the vet about putting him on a special urinary diet – a canned diet would be best, as canned food is less likely to cause urinary issues. If he has another urinary infection, behavioral measures won’t help until it’s been cleared up.
It’s possible that since he’s had urinary infections before, he may have come to associate his litterbox with pain, and that’s why he’s going elsewhere. This happened with one of my cats who had to have surgery to get some bladder stones removed. He started going on the bathroom rug because the litterbox had bad memories for him, so I bought him a new litter box, and a slightly different type of litter (try Cat Attract, you can get it at most pet supply stores, it’s very good). That was enough to get him to start using his box again. You’ll also need to remove any traces of urine odor from your bed, either by using an enzyme cleaner from the pet store designed for cat odors, or by replacing your mattress. Get a waterproof mattress cover to prevent any further damage in case he lapses again.
Make sure that all of your litterboxes are attractive for him to use – see this link for details: http://www.catinfo.org/litterbox.htm
Make the bed a less appealing place for him to go, by placing a waterproof tarp over it when you aren’t using it. Or, you can spray Feliway spray (from the pet store) on your bed. Feliway has calming ingredients to help prevent him from urinating in areas where it’s sprayed.
You may also want to consider stress as a possible culprit – stress can cause cats to urinate in familiar, comforting places with your scent on them (such as a bed, or in used laundry). Here’s a good article about stress in cats, and solutions: http://cats.about.com/cs/healthissues/a/stress.htm
A routine of regular play therapy can help to calm a stressed cat: http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?action=library&act=show&item=playtherapyforcats
A Feliway diffuser may also help: http://www.petcomfortzone.com/czcats.htm
Hope this helps!
if its a male and has not been neutered he may be marking his tuf/territory
You should make sure the kitty is on a pet food made for cats prone to UTI. He probaly has a UTI now and is useing the bed cause 1 it’s soft, and 2 cause is already has the pee sent. you might have to get a new mattress, but first try to keep him out of the bed room for a while, just shut the door when your not in there.
What I did I got a cover for my mattress and it was a plastic cover and that stopped the cat from peeing on my bed. I hope that will help.
He associates his litterbox with the pain of the urinary tract infection. I don’t know how you get him to realize that the pain isn’t being caused by the litterbox. In the meantime, keep him out of your bedroom. Also, if you don’t get the scent of his urine completely out of your bed & bedding, it signals to him, "pee here!" Try oxyclean for your laundry and fantastic w/ oxyclean for your mattress. My cat peed on my fav chair and I used the fantastic on it and it took the smell right out and he hasn’t done that again!
Even after washing your sheets, your pet can still recognize his smell on it, and so will continue to use it as a litter box. Change out your bedding entirely, and flip you mattress if you have to, and see if that helps the situation.
time to clean the box…. and perhaps restrict access to your room.
If the cat has stones it can’t help doing that….
sorry to hear about your cat doing where he does, but there is a high quality product called NO….it is for pets that do what they do in the wrong place, be sure to try it on a hidden spot on your bedding ,as it can ruin certain colorfast materials.
It’s not uncommon for cats with UTIs or histories of UTIs to have litter box issues.
My first recommendation is to make sure you close your cat out of your room when you can’t watch him.
Second, get a second litter box. He may have bad associations with the old one and sometimes a second box can make a difference. (Keep the old one also. If he starts using the new one exclusively then you can get rid of it, but you may need to keep 2 forever.)
Third, is another vet visit in order? Maybe he’s in the early stages of another UTI?
Fourth, change his diet. The kibble diets, including the Science ZD your vet probably has him on, are often culprits. The best solution for cats with UTI’s is to feed them raw food… there are lots of sites online about feeding pets raw meat. They thrive on it, especially cats.
This last bit is just hearsay, but my friend has told me she has had great luck in resolving the same problem by getting a Feliway Air diffuser. This is a thing you plug into the wall socket and it emits something that supposedly cats can smell. I do not have any evidence other than hearsay for this, but vets are checking it out, too. Might be worth a try.
Arm yourself with a spray gun. Whenever you catch him doing that, squirt him with water. If you don’t catch him in the act, take him to the scene of the crime and scold him, and THEN squirt him with water. Cats hate that. We soon cured my girlfriends cat of its bad habits like that.
My cat did this and she actually had kidney failure, not infections. Also, strokes can cause this problem. So, my suggestions are, get another type of litter (not the clumping kind), get you cat checked by another vet and/or consider getting in touch with an animal behaviorist to help you figure this out.
My brother had a cat that suddenly started defecating and urinating in different places. Ultimately, he had to have the animal put down (he is mentally ill and could no longer cope after 5 months of trying to solve the problem). Based on the sudden change of behaviors, we figured she either had a stroke or a brain aneurysm. Both of these can cause similar behaviors in humans.
I got my cat, Aslan, from the shelter, and he had the same problem, which is how he ended up in the shelter. It turned out that it was because of UT infections that his owners didn’t take care of. The vet put him on the Hills C/D cat food, which is supposed to help prevent them. (I had to take him off it though because it make him barf all the time). Sometimes cats will not pee in their litter box also if it has changed spots. Chances are, it’s related to his previous UT infections.
Most of the time it’s because of the UTI. Cat’s often urinate outside the box when they have UTIs. Also, he could be associating the box with the pain of the UTI, as someone else suggested. I suggest buying a NEW box, moving it to a new location, and using another kind of cat litter. Also, keep him OUT of your bedroom, keep the door closed if you can, and try as hard as you can to get the odor out of the mattress (this will be very hard because we can’t smell what they can). As for litter, try the old-fashioned NON-clumping kind if he is sensitive. Also, switch his food to a NON-ASH diet, something made for cats with urinary tract problems. Purina One makes a decent urinary tract diet, other than that, you’re looking at expensive brands like Hills Science Diet and Eukanuba.
To stop your cat from doing that close your bedroom door if that dosent work then get a spray bottle and spray him once then put the spray bottle on your bed and face it to the area where he does .
If possible, don’t let him in your bedroom. UTI’s can be painful and sometimes cats associate the pain of urination to the litter box. So, if he thinks that the box was the source of the pain, he’s obviously not going to want to use it.
Try finding a product called Cat Off. This neutralizes the urine and helps discourage them from using that spot again.