Hi all, I'm hoping someone here can help me. My husband and I are at the end of our rope and, for the first time, seriously thinking about having to re-home our 10-year-old cat, Smidge.
I'll keep it as short as I can: she has always peed outside of the litter box. We got her and her sister when they were babies and she's been peeing outside the box pretty much from the get-go. We moved around a lot for the first 6 years, so she'd pee in our apartments and we'd clean it up every time but it never got too bad before we inevitably moved again. Now, we've owned a home for about 4 years, and the problem is reaching critical mass.
My husband and I have tried almost everything: different litters, different kinds of boxes, different box setups/locations, Feliway, citrus oils and sprays, and most recently, pulling up maybe 80% of our carpet, treating our concrete with VSP, enzyme cleaner, bleach, and smoke-grade sealant, sanding down the studs, cutting out and replacing drywall and baseboards, and replacing the flooring with laminate.
She keeps peeing everywhere.
She's the sweetest cat in the world, and she is absolutely in love with my husband. I don't think I've ever seen a cat love a human the way she loves him. We raised them from the time they were little kittens with horrible respiratory infections and flea infestations, brought them back to good health, and have so many happy memories snuggling and playing with them, and it is absolutely heart-wrenching to think about sending her back to a shelter. But it's affected our lives in very real ways and I don't know how much longer we can do it. We thought this $10K+ reno project would give us a fresh start, but she recently started peeing everywhere again and we are exhausted. We haven't had friends over in years. It's affecting our marriage and my husband has even threatened to move out if we don't get this problem fixed.
My next idea is to try anti-anxiety meds, which our local SPCA lists as one of the "last resort" options before considering re-homing her. Right now, she's confined to a bathroom with two litter boxes, food and water, and her scratching post, and only comes out for short periods of time when we are able to supervise her every move. I come hang out with her a few times a day so she can associate positive memories with the tiny bathroom space and not feel so stressed out, but it's no way for a cat to live and hearing her crying during the day breaks my heart.
Sorry if this is all over the place, but I guess my question is...what the hell do we do? Has anyone actually conquered this problem? Almost every cat owner we talk to, even our vets, has similar horror stories and have for the most part just thrown up their hands and eventually given up. I feel so hopeless and sad.
Please, please...does anyone have any advice that could help us keep our sweet kitty?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/j3okym/help_cat_pees_everywhere/
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