My female cat is 12 years old. For about the last year she has been urinating on the throw rugs in the bathroom. The litter box is in the bathroom and she does use it to poop. Do you think this is behavioral or medical?

There are a few things you can do.  One, make sure the litter box is clean, and maybe offer her a second one, or a new one if the one you are using is old-- they get smelly over time.  Two, get one of those plug in diffusers that help cats feel more relaxed about their environment-- they really help some cats.  Lastly, take her to the vet-- she could have bladder stones, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, or any number of things!  Anyone who diagnoses your cat on a chat forum is just guessing.  Without a good exam, no one, including you, knows what’s going on!

A few thoughts… It is excellent advice to increase the number of cat boxes you are offering your kitty.  Generally, the veterinary behaviorists recommend one more cat box than there are cats in the home.
Because many of our older cats have arthritis, it may be difficult for her to assume a normal urination stance, as well as get into and out of the box. Covered boxes can present problems, as the kitty needs to bend down in order to enter.

Cats have a location preference (where they want to urinate and defecate) and a substrate preference (that upon which they want to urinate and defecate).  By urinating right outside the box, your kitty is indicating that she “knows” the location, but may not think that the cat box is maintained as scrupulously as she wishes.

Cat boxes should be scooped out at least once daily and the cat box completely changed every seven days.  Wash the box with a mild soap and hot water.  Older cats boxes retain odors, so if you haven’t purchased a new box in a few years, it would be a good time to get a few new ones.

I would pick up the throw rugs in the short-term and use Zero Odor (available on-line at http://www.zeropetodor.com) to clean the rugs.

Many older cats who are have underlying medical issues will have a change in cat box habits.  So, a visit to the veterinarian for an exam, labwork (including a urinalysis +/- urine culture, as warranted) should be on your “to do” list.

Please let me know how I can help further.

Michele Gaspar, DVM, DABVP (Feline)

One additional thing… you are probably going to have to trash that rug and then go rugless for a while to help retrain her.  Once they pee on it, it will forever have the scent of “the next most acceptable place” to pee.

There are “puppy litter boxes” that some people use to train small dogs in apartments and homes. These boxes are wonderful for cats with arthritis, as they have a lower entrance lip.  Most pet superstores carry them.  Generally we want the cat box to be 1.5 times the length of the cats head and body.  This length allows cats to turn around comfortably.

Zero Odor is simply the best de-odorizer on the market.  There was a study conducted by a board certified veterinary behaviorist that looked at deodorizers and this was the product that came up on top.

Michele Gaspar, DVM, DABVP (Feline)

The puppy litter boxes are a great idea! My sister in law has a shih-tzu who’s always used puppy pads, but she was wanting something with less chance of her human visitors accidentally stepping into no-no land. I of course thought of FP and a doggie box and started on some research. I saw plenty of dog litterboxes out there, many for small toy breeds and puppies. The sides of doggie boxes are typically not that that tall, and most of them have an actual “entrance” to the box, lowered lip on one side so the short-legged dogs and puppies don’t have to jump up or oven step up in order to get into the box. Just walk on in! That should work very well for cats with arthritis.

I just recommended one for a friend of mine who has a special needs cat. Gulliver has very little use of his hind legs. He gets around just fine on his own most of the time, between dragging his backside along and taking a few wobbly steps or by just looking so darn cute that we all can’t resist him and have to pick him up!! He’s getting older though, and started having problems getting into a regular litterbox. My friend solved the problem by getting tons of small rag rugs and lines the bottom of his kitty crate with them. He has one corner he uses for business activities, and she changes them out at least 2-3 times a day. Now before anyone gets up in arms about crating, Gulliver absolutely LOVES his kitty crate! It’s HUGE and he’s tiny, it’s elevated so he gets a good view of all the activity going on, and it’s his personal sanctuary from his overly rambunctious doggy brother. Most of the time he’s out for any length of time he’ll wobble back over to it and look back and forth between it and you as notice for you to hoist him back up into his room! He can get in just fine on his own, but he’d rather have the ear-scratching elevator service take him! : P Anyhoos, the doggie box would take up a lot of space in his room, so until she gets him a bigger one, she’s sticking with the status quo.

Oh! And I’ll have to look into the Zero Odor thingie!! FP takes care of most of the odor, but still you always worry when company comes over. Plus if its good at pet odors, it should be good for other stinky things. The link wasn’t working right now, so I’ll have to look it up another time when I’m not supposed to be getting ready for work! : P

I had this problem with throw rugs also.  Not just in the bathroom.  My older cat peed on them.  I think as she got older her little old paws liked the softness.  I wound up removing the rugs from the 2nd floor altogether and she did not pee on the bare floor.  But ANYTHING soft on the floor would get peed on...a washcloth, a paper towel, my husbands socks (yikes!) so we learned to pick up EVERYTHING.  I’ve heard also that the non-skid backing on throw rugs can smell like ammonia to a cat--you might try an all cotton rug?  Didn’t solve it for my old cat but might help you, it helps some folks...removing the throw rugs altogether was the only solution for my cat.  This happened when she was younger, but she did eventually get kidney disease and it took her, sadly, she is no longer with us. 

Now my 10 yr old boy cat peed on the bathroom rug twice, (different rug, it was clean and fairly new, we had not kept a rug there for a long time until recently after we lost our old female cat, different bathroom) so I decided no more rugs in the bathroom, too tempting for him?  Not sure why, but it was a non-skid one also and I wondered about the smell of the backing.  Oh well, we’ll just toss down a terry bathmat like at hotels and then pick up and hang over the tub after showering if we want something to stand on.  Not as comfy for us people, but now I don’t trust my cats with bath rugs and not that big a deal to just not have one.  He does not pee on other carpeting in the home, but all we have is office carpet that is not that soft, the rest of the house is bare floors.  (He has been checked at the vet not long ago and is fine) Hope this info may help someone!

About her liking the SOFTNESS of rugs:  She also like SOFT litter.  We did offer several boxes of the soft Feline Pine Scoop (as soon as it came on the market) along with some classic Feline pine boxes (we had 4 cats at the time, and 7 litter boxes, some liked the classic pellets) and my old cat LOVED the softness of the scoopable as she got older.  Used it exclusively for the rest of her dear little life. She had used Feline Pine pellets for years but I guess her paws got too sensitive as she became elderly and let us know “in no uncertain terms” that she no longer liked it. 

We now have only two of our four cats left and they mostly use the Scoop litter boxes but I keep one classic Pine box going and one of the cats likes to use it some too.  Feline Pine is the BEST litter out there and is all I have bought, for many years!

I have a 6 yr old cat who had recently decided that the litter box was unacceptable, choosing to pee on the underlying newspaper instead.  Then she also decided that the small bath rug right in front of a sink in our bathroom was also great(but only at night just before we went to bed).  I picked that up each time and washed and dried it, but it continued.  So I decided to remove the rug permanently and it seemed to work until this weekend.  I was away and my husband tells me she peed on the tile floor in exactly the same spot. 
But, the good news is that every time she went into the litter box area, I picked her up and placed her in the box and she is now using the box again.  But I am flummoxed by the bathroom peeing.  The vet says she has no kidney problem and she is being treated for roundworms (who are not all dead and gone ...yet).

Any ideas?

I have a suggestion for you with your cat peeing on the tile floor.  I wonder if the grout, which can be very absorbant, may be holding the odor, giving her a cue to continue using that spot.  You may not smell it but perhaps the feline nose can.  The fact she returns to THAT EXACT SPOT is what gives me that idea.

I have tried a number of products for urine removal when I had a cystitis kitty and a kidney failure cat too--and while several of them are pretty effective, like FON spray and Nature’s Miracle for Cats formula, I have to tip my hat to one product in particular, and it has a weird name “Anti-Icky-Poo”.  It has enzymes to break apart the sulpher bonds that keep the smell alive, a number of the enzyme cleaners have that, but this also has live bacteria to speed the decomposition (Decomp. makes the smell get worse over time).  I buy it by the gallon, I’m serious it is the BEST at eliminating the source of the odor.  It takes a little while to fully work, and you may need to apply more than once, but honestly I think it works the BEST.  No offense to the vet here, but I’ve tried the Zero Odor too, and it does work-but seemingly only temporarily, and the odor returns eventually, maybe a week or two later, at least it did for me.  It does clear the air quickly, though, I used it to quickly kill the smell when the doorbell was ringing, for example, but I never got lasting results with it removing the odor for good.

I don’t work for ANTI-ICKY-POO, I promise!  But you can read more at the manufacturers site MisterMax.com.  I buy it direct from a company in California called PBGONE.com (I’m not kidding, these are the real names!) but you can also get it on Amazon. 

Other ideas might be that she wants the box changed or scooped more often (did your hubby keep it scooped while you were gone?) or that the box isn’t big enough for her to be comfortable to turn around, or if it has a lid many cats don’t like covered box, or maybe simply getting a new box (plastics can hold odors that remain even when washed, you may not notice but to the cat it may reek) or if you use a strong smelling cleaner the cat could be repelled by that (always use a mild dish detergent to clean the cat box, was what I was told).  If you are using Classic pelleted FP you might want to try the soft FPScoop to help attract her to go use it EVERY TIME instead of sometimes using the tile floor.  You may want to temporarily keep the bathroom door closed while you are using products to remove the smell, or put something there that would repell her from that spot. 

Surprisingly, a good repellent is to put a new bar of mens’ soap (like Irish Spring or Zest), still wrapped is ok, but lay it on the spot where you don’t want her to “go”.  She won’t want to get too close to a strong smelling soap, and without her sniffing the spot she will perhaps break the habit of using that place.  This has worked to protect areas in my house.

My vet says effective cleaning, along with deterrants from the spots you want her to leave alone, along with ways of making the litter box more attractive, is the combination of efforts that will work to fix the problem.

Do you have more than one cat?  Could be some territorial issues, one cat may perceive that the box is “owned” by the more dominant one.  If so, maybe putting another box in another part of the house may help, so if the way is “blocked” by a dominant cat to one box, there is another place to go.

Hope some of this helps!  I understand how frustrating it can be to deal with urine issues!

First you really should take her to the vet and tell them about her peeing on rugs and ask for a geriatric check-up including a blood and urine test for chronic renal failure.  That is a very common problem in elderly cats and it is what tipped me off something was wrong with my elderly boys.  For 15 years, Tux would have been mortified at himself for going potty outside of the boxes...he wouldn’t even go to the bathroom outside in the sand...I had to run him inside to use the box. All of a sudden, he started urinating on the rugs or any other piece of cloth on the floor. I suspected bladder infection but it ended up being kidney failure. CRF cats get very thirsty and what Tux was doing was drinking so much water, he just couldn’t make it to the litterboxes when the urge to go hit him.  We did fluids with him and that helped the thirstiness but he was still not able to make it to the boxes in time so what I did was buy a stack of those cheap baking pans with low sides that is made out of tinfoil and put one in each room where he could get to it easily enough.

Hi, I just wanted to send the correct weblink to get info about the Zero Odor product Dr. Gaspar suggested. I tried the link she included, but it didn’t work, so I found it and wanted to make sure others found info on it if interested!

Thanks, Dr. Gaspar! this product looks good and it’s non toxic which makes our family feel better.
I have tried Nature’s Miracle powder in litterboxes it does a good job too! But haven’t tried other liquid odor neutralizers, so will investigate Zero Odor.

We are a multi cat household and have a second kitty, Jerry, who is 18 1/2yrs old diagnosed last year with moderate kidney disease so he is peeing on anything soft, so finding a non toxic odor remover is important to us.  What about using vinegar and water mix? Can’t remember if I read this neutralizes or smells too much like urine? I know it’s natural so..... We use non toxic cleaning products too, so keep our home healthy for our kitties and us!

Lynn

I wouldn’t recommend vinegar and water to eliminate the odor of urine or feces.  http://www.zeroodorstore.com has the products.

Michele Gaspar, DVM, DABVP (Feline)

Hello,
My cat has taken to peeing on any thing fabric or paper on the floor. She has diabetes that Is managed with insulin… it is just a bad unbreakable habit.
I am thinking of getting cotton area rugs for by the doors…
Would washing or spraying with orange oil or eucalyptus oil repel her with our harming her?

Any info is appreciated.

Thanks and Happy New Year.
Brooke

Brooke :  Does your kitty have a “plantigrade neuropathy” (walking on the hocks) that is often seen in cats with uncontrolled diabetes?  If so, consider using a cat box with a low entrance lip (the “puppy litter boxes” work well for this) and be scrupulous about maintaining the box.

Some cats with diabetes begin to avoid a very wet cat box and prefer to urinate on soft, dry surfaces. 

Rather than using a repellant oil, keep the cat box scrupulously clean and dry; use small (less deep) amounts of cat box filler, so that you can empty the box more frequently; discuss with your veterinarian whether plantigrade neuropathy may make it difficult for her to maneuver into the box (and may make for the backs of her legs to become wet); and also consider that if she is urinating by the doors, alongside the perimeters of rooms or in corners that she may be marking to cats outside.

Please let me know how I can help further,

Michele Gaspar,DVM, DABVP (Feline)