I am so bloody MAD at my Cat tonight!

[KarenBC]

I've been away for 3 days on a work thing. Had a really nasty flight in tonight, it was on a small plane and very bumpy due to weather. Arrived back to find 8" of wet snow on top of my vehicle and the snow plow at the airport had left a nice windrow behind the vehicle. The drive home was 40 minutes of white knuckles with snow/rain coming down and a lot of slush on the roads. I was so glad to pull into my little piece of the world.

Got my critters all checked and fed, (my son has been home and looking after them between shifts). Dug some snow, got the fire going, so it's been a busy evening all in all and with traveling on top of it - I'm pretty much beat.

Went into my bedroom - and went ballistic. The cat has p*ssed ALL over my bed. He hasn't done this before. I have a white goose feather comforter, a small down comforter and a heavy silk padded duvet. He not only peed all the way through to the silk duvet, he also got my pillows. The cat does not sleep with me, and spends half his time outside.
I've got the washer going, but it's going to be a sofa night for me - no way I'll be able to get all this bedding dry tonight.

The cat? He's outside, and he won't be coming back in until I'm not so bloody mad at him.

This definitely wasn't a "one-pee" event - he's obviously been peeing on the bed the whole time I was away. He has access to his litter box all the time and it was clean. He gets one more chance - if he does this again, he's a permanent outdoor cat.

[kfander]

I have four cats who are very well behaved, generally. One of them, however, is unable to resist urinating on anything that is down-filled. It doesn't seem as if she is upset or nervous about anything in particular, but if we give her access to the bedroom or closet, she will urinate on our down-filled pillows or comforters. For that reason, we never leave the closet or bedroom doors open, which seems easier than trying to figure her out.

[NCLee]

Karen, I feel for you! Hope you are just a wee bit less :mad: when you read this.

One time I wanted a house cat. Got a beautiful Siamese from the animal shelter. Had him for years as an indoor cat. Until one day when he urinated on my shoes and I didn't know it before I went to work. A cold day, dressed in a hurry & didn't notice a problem.

AFTER my feet warmed up the shoes, well, that's a different story. I couldn't leave work, so I stayed as far away from other human beings, as possible!

Had to burn the shoes and the cat learned to live outdoors! As much as I like cats, said I'd NEVER have another cat in the house.

Hope your bedding cleaned up OK. Sounds like good advice to ban yours from the bedroom, too.

Lee

[KarenBC]

This cat has some Manx in him - I think they are a bit similar to Siamese, his mom had Siamese colouring.

Interesting that it is the downfilling that your cat goes after kfander - there were 2 blankets that are down/feather filled on the bed.

Last night I made up a little sign and taped it on the door...it says "No Paws" and has an outline of a cat with a red circle with a bar through it". (Cat's name is Paws - he has all kinds of extra toes). My son almost fell off the stairs laughing when he got home from shift at 11:30 last night. Wanted to know what the cat had done, he knew the cat had done something pretty bad.

Lee my outdoor big fuzzy cat did the same thing that yours did, he peed in my shoes - he became a permanent outdoor cat. So I can imagine what you went through at work. I don't think there is anything as awful smelling as cat pee.

[kfander]

Three of my cats are nearly 22 now, while the fourth is 10, and they do well indoors as long as the litter boxes are kept clean and they, or one in particular, are not given access to anything down-filled. I have heard this from others as well, so I know it's not an uncommon thing. Why they feel the need to do that is another thing altogether, and one that I'll never know.

[Dame]

When we first moved here we tried no inside cats and unfortunately a good mouser as a house-cat is mandatory here. We do however keep the bedroom doors closed and are careful what they have access to.

[KarenBC]

Yep, I've been thinking about that Dame, the possible mouse problem. Shutting bedroom doors doesn't really work, as we only have radiant heat from the wood furnace or cookstove, (no ducting or registers) - so the bedrooms would get mighty cold in the winter months.

[kfander]

As mentioned earlier, of my four cats, one of them is psychotic and always has been. Even her eyes and her tail are twisted when she's having a psychotic episode.

One thing that has done very well with her is pheromone plugins. I use the ones from Nutri-Vet, although the Felliway plugins are better known. Nutri-Vet, however, is cheaper and has one percent more of the pheromone ingredient.

Lydia, the psychotic cat, has always been housebroken, although she would go through periods every few months where she'd start leaving messes around the house, both urinating and defecating, which is, of course, hugely disgusting.

Sometimes, I could figure out what was going on with her, such as a change in cat litter, as she is very picky about the type of cat litter that she uses. Fortunately, her choices aren't particularly pricey but changing to another type of litter can be a problem.

In the nearly twenty-two years that she has been with me, I have moved to three different houses in Texas, to a few different houses in Maine, as well as a couple of years in North Carolina, where we lived in two different places. Moving can be stressful for cats, and Lydia would demonstrate her stress by trying to make the people in her life even more stressed than she was.

Such simple things like changing a piece of furniture could be a problem. I moved my desk, which holds a couple of cat beds as well as my computer stuff, from one side of the room to another, and that was too much for Lydia to handle.

But more times than not, I wouldn't be able to figure out what it was that was causing Lydia to get stressed.

Several years ago, someone recommended pheromone plugins, and I thought that sound like a crazy idea. Not knowing what else to do, I tried it, though.

I was amazed. Within an hour, her tail was no longer twisted and her eyes were relaxed. She wouldn't leave the room where the pheromone was except to use the litter box, but there were no more problems.

The stuff isn't cheap and a refill lasts only about a month, so I was hoping that I wouldn't have to replace them continuously.

I didn't. Over the years, I have come to pay closer attention to her. When I see that her eyes are off and that her tail has a couple of extra bends in it, I try to think about what it might be that would be stressing Lydia. Sometimes I can, but sometimes I don't have a clue.

I have also come to anticipate stressors in advance, and prepare for them. For example, before a move, I will pick up a pheromone plugin and plug it in at the new place so that it feels like home to her. While I was getting cancer treatment and away from the house so much more than usual, I kept a pheromone plugin running.

I've been using them for more than ten years now, and haven't had any problems with her more than twice, when I wasn't paying attention.

There is no need to saturate the house with the stuff. Giving her one comfort zone is sufficient, particularly if it's plugged in to a room that the cat generally hangs around in anyhow. In my case, I plug it into the outlet in my office, which has the cat beds and the cat tree.

When a plugin runs out, usually in about a month, I unplug it rather than replacing it, and usually I can go several months before having a need to resort to it again. She has gone years in the house that we own, and where she feels the most comfortable, without one, but when we moved north for the spring and summer, I had one plugged in for the first month.

So for problem cats, I recommend pheromone plugins. Unfortunately, whatever it is that prompts Lydia to urinate on down-filled pillows or comforters is an entirely different compulsion. She doesn't seem stressed before or after she does this, and the pheromones don't help with that. The only thing I can do about that is to not give her access to anything with down.

Lydia's twin sister, Cutie, is another creature. She once got inadvertently locked in a walk-in closet before we left for a couple of days. We had someone coming over to clean the litter boxes and feed the cats while we were gone, but Cutie was probably too afraid of strangers to call out while she was there. When we returned, once she realized it was us, she started yelling, and practically ran me over on her way to the litter box. In two days, she hadn't made a mess in the closet.

[Hooverville]

Cats are strange creatures. We had an all white cat when the kids were small. She was an odd one, but pretty much kept to herself. She used her box perfectly, and had a strange liking for tomatoes. Anyway, I had several African violet houseplants at the time, and she never even went near them (they were beautiful, by the way). But when we went on vacation for a week, she completely destroyed them! We had my mom and sister come over everyday to check on her, and evidently the cat tore into the plants the very first night! I guess she was angry that we didn't take her with us. LOL

[MooseToo]

Had to burn the shoes
fortunately for you, you were able to just wash your feet -

[NCLee]

fortunately for you, you were able to just wash your feet -

LOL

And the socks, too.

Lee

[Grizzy]

Lee, your story cracked me up haha..

Before I had muh cubbies an was work'n full time.. I got to the office one day an after a few hours we all sorta noticed.. somethin.. but nobody said anything we jus sniffed an looooked around. Turned out the clothes I had layed out for work had slipped down off the back of the chair an the cat.. well.. less jus say it was yur shooz all over agin haha.. I bout croaked but was so far from home (had to commute by bus) so that was a very long embearisk'n day. Me an the lil hussy cat had a understand'n affer that.. She became keeper of the yard with occasional inhouse visits but that was IT. I never did live that down. :sarcastic:

~Grizzy~

[Catalpa]

Oh my, the stories! I must consider myself blessed...I had my kitties for 25 years and they never did anything like that. They were indoor cats up until my daughter was 8 or so, and they suddenly starting messing on the basement floor. They got moved outside for a few years, then brought back in when a really bitter winter hit. Aside from the basement floor (which really hardly mattered) their worst habit was jumpin up on the kitchen table, where they know they weren't allowed. I'd be walking 'round the corner and hear "thump, thump" as they'd jump down and be sitting on the floor looking all innercent when I came through the door.

Still miss those two, a lot.

[kfander]

I had a stack of books on my coffee table. One of my cats rubbed against it, and the pile moved. Knowing what was going to happen, I watched. She bumped against it again, causing the books to move some more, She did it again and again, until finally the books fell onto the floor, at which time the cat did a pretty impressive job of looking shocked. Damned cats...

[KarenBC]

I had a stack of books on my coffee table. One of my cats rubbed against it, and the pile moved. Knowing what was going to happen, I watched. She bumped against it again, causing the books to move some more, She did it again and again, until finally the books fell onto the floor, at which time the cat did a pretty impressive job of looking shocked. Damned cats...

Yep, I've seen that innocent shocked look..."who me?!"...."couldn't have been MY fault"

Yep, can't live with 'em and can't live without 'em...my bed pee-r is still banished to the outdoors, and knows it. He hasn't really tried to get back inside yet.

[Tarvae]

My little Manx/Siamese cross - now long departed to the happy hunting grounds - was an indoor cat all her life and generally very well behaved about using her tray...except on one occasion when my partner and I had not long been living together and went away for a weekend, I normally put her in a cattery but a friend of his offered to come in and feed her/clean litter tray every day.

We cam back to find the litter tray not cleaned for three days..... as we unpacked our bags the cat looked at us, chirped and then very deliberately peed on my partners jacket that was on the floor. At which point his response was "Yep, we deserved that and the cat has a valid point."

Paid for the cattery after that!

[offgridbob]

It sounds like your cat had some separation angziety. Cat and dogs both get it. They do what they do because they are pissed off that you left them. I had a rat terrier that did that to me. We were gone for a week and he was well looked after. When we got back he crapped from the front door then into the bedroom and on the bed. He never did it again untill he died two hours later. (just my wishfull thinking) he lived another ten years.

[MYellowRose]

One of my three has started peeing on my son-in-laws bean bag chair and any dirty clothes that can be found. Recently I bought the 6 year old a nice warm jacket and about a week later I got a comforter, neither is down filled to my knowledge but both have been initiated. My daughter wants me to get rid of both the females because we don't know which is doing this and the part Siamese can be somewhat mean. I'm not going to do it as I don't have trouble when it's just me and my cats. Maybe it will encourage my daughter to find somewhere else to live sooner rather than later. LOL! At present there are two little boxes in the living room, had one in the bathroom until the 14 month old got to walking good. It was removed because we now keep the bathroom door closed. I generally use Tidy Cat scoopable litter though I bought a 40# bucket of Litter Clean from Walmart this month as it's cheaper by a couple of dollars. I prefer the litter box to be in the bathroom as I would scoop it out every time I used the bathroom, and being a middle aged lady that was quite often. LOL! I look at it this way, my daughter and her family moved in with me, for a couple of weeks or so they said, so they have to put up with me and the cats or they can move, it's very simple.

[kfander]

I'm not saying that's it, but having someone else move into the house can be a significant stressor for a cat.

[Tarvae]

I'm not saying that's it, but having someone else move into the house can be a significant stressor for a cat.

Especially if one of those people doesn't like the cats which is what it sounds like