Hi

My apologies for the repetition.

To be honest yesterday took the wind out of my sails.

Charlie has been with us for about two months. We rescued him without any background; probably foolish in hindsight. But we fell in love with him straight away. It's harder on wife because she is at home with him all day. I come home & most of the time he is asleep.

Yesterday, he peed three times, not in 30 minutes, but in 90 minutes. He has a bed with a blanket and a cushion. The only times he has peed outside of his litter tray is in his bed. At any given time, his bed was either a cushion, blanket or combination of both. He has pood twice outside of his litter tray; once in the bath & the other time in his bed. The rest of the time he takes care of business in his tray. Almost, every week he has a sly pee in his bed. Don't know why.

I like the idea of introducing him to our home, room by room, but the problem is that the bathroom & toilet are not big enough to house a litter tray, food & water. He does not have and never has had access to two of the three bedrooms. So the only way that it could conceivably be done is with the kitchen, hall, lounge & our bedroom. Not sure where to begin & in what context.

During the day, he currently has access to the kitchen, hall & lounge in our bungalow. He has his food (tuna) at 0700, supported by Applaws dry food & then has a sachet at about 1700. He always has access to water & his litter tray.

During the night, we close off the lounge and then he has access to our bedroom. He sleeps with us on the bed. He has never been any trouble during the night; really good boy.

When we leave him to go shopping; he has access to the hall & kitchen. He has toys & a fatboy scratch post. The scratching of the furniture has lessened, but now sits up like a meekat cat and scratches the glass cabinets where my wife houses her teddy bear collection. He also likes getting in behind the vertical blinds to scratch the patio windows.

Sorry for the long reply, but I felt with my first post that I had left out important information.

Regards

CCC

CCC, don’t despair… with all the cat knowledge on this forum….. I am sure we can help.

I do think that the best thing to do in the first instance, is to get him checked out by a vet.

If the vet gives his urinary tracts the all clear… then we can take it from there.

It’s just I feel pretty pointless to treat this as a behavior issue when it could very well be a physical issue. If that is ruled out by the vet, then I am sure we can all chip in and work out some way of using the introduction techniques so they fit into your home and your life.

But before we talk about fairly complicated introductions techniques the easy things have to be ruled out first. i.e:
1. That he has no UTI’s
2. Type of cat litter being used
3. Position of the litter trays
4. Types of litter trays being used

I explained on the other thread the issues with some cats with the type of litter, they type of litter tray, and where their trays are positioned, so I wont repeat all that now. But would you mind answering these questions, until we have the answers to those basics, we can’t really advise any further.

But just to make you feel better (or worse, lol, whatever the case may be) the going behind the vertical blinds to scratch at the glass… well come the 2nd of January it will be a whole year I have been trying to cure this little issue with my "new" girl…. Suffice to say I adored the summer nights when I could just leave the blinds open.

Great advice already from Tje

A friend was experiening very similiar problems with her young cat/kitten. Sadly it turned out cat had serious kidney issues and died

I'm not suggesting there is anything of such a serious nature going on here, but just want to stress the real importance of seeing a vet as soon as you can with your cat.

Hope all is well!

Hi CC, I can only reiterate the advice given by Tje. It's really important you take Charlie to the vet to rule out UTI's. This is very easily treated with a course of antibiotics. If it's the case that he has got a UTI, there may not be any behavioural problems once the infection has cleared up which will be a bonus!
Cats are very good at masking pain, so although Charlie may seem okay in himself, he may not be totally 100%, so please get him checked over. Good luck

Thanks for the advice.

Charlie had a UTI about two months ago; he was treated with antibiotics.

Could it return so quickly, again?

Yes, I believe it could return (it's certainly the case with humans, so could well be the same with cats?). It may have been something as simple as the course of antibiotics not been quite long enough to totally eradicate the UTI and it's been rumbling along at a low level. I would definitely be returning to the vet today if possible. Please let us know how you get on

Thanks for the reply.

Charlie had a UTI shortly after we got him, two months ago. He had antibiotics. Now I'm a bit worried that it could be more serious if its appeared again.

We use Catsan, in a plastic litter tray. The tray is rectangle and about 3 inches deep. The tray is situated in the kitchen behind the door where our old boiler used to be.

CCC, you need to get this cat back to the vets. That's a must I'm afraid. I am beginning to get a sneaky feeling this isn't a behaviour issue at all but a physical one, certainly as he has already been treated for a UTI. The things you are describing are very typical behaviours of a cat with a UTI. And yes they can be reoccurring problems depending on what the cause of the UTIs are. Some UTIs have no known cause and that’s called idiopathic UTI or idiopathic cystitis. But UTIs can also be caused by stones or blockages or infections. A vet will diagnose idiopatic cystitis by ruling out stones or blockages or infections. Idiopathic cystitis can be (is very often) triggered by stress, and can be a reoccurring issue. This cat really needs to go back to the vet. Please do it soon as it can get a LOT worse if not treated in a timely fashion.

CCC - please stay in touch and let us know what happens x

Tje and the others are right. Get him checked out. My cat had a stress-related UTI and I would never have figured it out if he had not started peeing outside his tray. He went for tests and the vet found no crystals or infection, so we concluded it was stress-related (most likely due to a tom cat prowling our garden at night).