Peeing on my bed

by Alexia
(Washington)

I adopted two brother cats from a shelter in June. They are older, ten years old, and I didn't get much background information when I adopted them. About a month in to our relationship I woke up to cat pee on my bed. I quickly washed my bedding and cleaned their litter and thought that would be the end of it.

After a few more accidents and seeing which cat it was that was eliminating outside of the litter box I quickly rushed my cat to the vet to see about his health. Both the urine test and bloodwork came out normal. I then sprayed my bed down with pet odor eliminator and have been using that on the stains ever since. I also got fancy detergent that doesn't list ammonia as an ingredient. I clean out their litter boxes daily and have tried car attract litter. None of it has worked. I tried Feliway and I swear he just peed more.

My household is a busy one and my vet thinks that this might be the problem, but as of right now moving is not an option.

My cat has gotten out a few times and I notice that he mews at the door as if asking to be let out. Could he be peeing because he wants to be an outdoor cat? He has been an indoor for his whole life and I would preferably like to keep him that way. But I worry I am not being conducive to his needs.
What do you think?
Anything will help!

Hi, Alexia,

I understand your frustration. I have been in your shoes as have many of your fellow readers.

I come from a position of not being in favor of letting a cat outdoors so even if that is what he wants I personally would not do that.

While you have worked diligently to solve this problem, including making sure he didn't have a medical problem and trying many different behavioral/environmental changes, there may still be others that you have not tried.

Please read Cat Elimination Problems and the other pages that the links on that page will lead you to as well as the many questions and answers at the bottom of pages. There is a lot of information there.

If after trying everything, there is still a problem, your veterinarian can put your kitty on medication temporarily, sometimes combined with sequestration in a small room until he is retrained to use his litter box. Don't give up on him. It can take a lot of work and patience, but it's quite possible to work this problem out.