Wee problems can be small. Or big. Or extreme. And sometimes it is our response that creates how much of a problem it is! I'm talking about the cat who wees outside of the litterbox. If your response is loud, disciplinary, or even extreme - rub the cat's nose in it, or get rid of the cat - then YOU are making a big or extreme problem. Not the cat. Because these measures are not solution driven, they are reactionary, and are about us venting and exploding our appalled and angry emotions (to make us feel better??).
So, instead, here is a practical guide to dealing with Wee problems...and keeping them wee.
1. Understand the reason why our cat peed outside the litterbox.
Think a bit along the lines of if our cat were a child who wet themselves. As far as I know, children do NOT wet themselves out of vengence on their parents for something, so let's discard that one straight away. Fear, distress, illness, or being 'caught short' are all valid reasons. Now let's make it cat specific. If the litter box is dirty - from the cat's heightened senses - they are going to be 'caught short' of a decent toilet. They're pretty clever in some of the alternative toilet solutions they find! If you cat is fastidious, like our Kato, even a clean litter box next to one with a single deposit, can be 'too dirty' if there are other mitigating factors.
Like illness. Most litterbox 'accidents' are due to illness, so if this is a sudden and unexplained wee, get a check-up. In our case, because there is a pattern to Kato's wee problem (which is actually quite big!), we have to look at the other factors - fear and distress/stress. Bear in mind that for felines, it is established fact that stress becomes illness quite quickly, so you may be looking at several factors. You will need to address them all.
For Kato, stress equals weeing on something that smells very reassurring. Like my bed/bedding/pillow. The guess is that mingling scents with a loved person helps to ease stress. (Although it makes mine go up! Especially if I'm actually IN bed!). Of course, once the feline pee scent is on something, it also might be a signal to 'refresh ' this spot. And then we get to the human reaction - will loud/scary/violent make feline stress levels go up or down? It's our choice - remembering that sane people want to move toward a solution.
2. Choose your response.
Ok, so you know how important this is from a feed/not feed the stress cycle perspective. Be calm and be practical with the cleaning. You can be sad, very sad, with some quiet distress. If our cat is our friend, they won't want to make us cry - friends don't do that. And who hasn't experienced the soft approach of our cat to comfort us in our sadness? So let's keep operating on these levels, lest we scare any higher thinking from the feline brain and make it revert to survival from the scary monster.
3. The practical Stuff
a) Vet check needed?
b) Absorb puddled wee. Use something disposable - old towel/t-shirt/paper towels absorb puddles quickly. It's harder to clean once it's absorbed, especially as wee wicks into fabric fibres and SPREADS inside the fabric.
c) Clean thoroughly, for a cat nose. Or discard. This is your choice, and depending on the wee problem, you may progress toward the discard option when cleaning seems not to have worked. Or you can cut to the chase and immediately throw out, which is the 'safest' option. Cat noses are so sensitive. Even if you cant smell it, keep an eye on things, as your cat might still smell this spot and will be attracted to pee here again later because of the lingering smell that 'needs refreshing'.
Cleaning well is difficult. You will need an enzyme specific cleaner for urine, and many days, as the enzyme needs to sit on/in the fabric to 'eat up' the urine. Then you will undoubtedly want to wash away the smell of that cleaner. And then you might need to treat it again because there is still a pee smell. And again. And again.
I do have a good smellery, so this is the way it goes over here, until we get to the point of 'it's not worth it' - time for a new couch/new mattress/new doona/new blankets/new sheets. We have purchased all of those things! We did go for several years before purchasing the big things, and my cleaning was quite sufficient for human noses. No visitors ever knew!
Now, on the topic of enzyme cleaners, I have used these for 5 years, and I'm at the point where the smell of the cleaner is worse than the smell of the pee (it gives me migraines). I have trialled using straight vinegar. I have read that it does break down cat wee, over time. It is certainly much cheaper (for the gallons that need to be used to soak and run through a couch for example - it has to go all the way through, because pee wicks, remember?). And the smell of vinegar isnt too bad. The three years I persisited in cleaning our couch (3 incidents in 3 years), took several weeks, as drying time is also needed between treatments. We sat on towels on the damp couch during this time.
SO, be encouraged. You can live through cleaning!! With some cats, it won't ever happen again - with ours, it is an ongoing challenge. We needed to start from scratch for best results, so we did bite the bullet and discard and replace.
Re cleaning sheets/doonas - our domestic washing machines don't use enough water. You will need to use a laundromat big machine after enzyme treatment. Do NOT bundle material up; keep the pee area very separate from the 'good' material (wicking remember?!), and soak just this area in a bucket, with the enzyme cleaner. Keep following the enzyme cleaner directions before your final wash in a big machine.
Doonas - you can try drycleaning. Sometimes we have had success. I laundromat wash the doona after drycleaning to reduce chemical odour.
d) Replace things appropriately
In our chemical, man-made world, some things smell like good places to pee for a cat. This is unfortunate. I can't buy a certain Kmart cheap pillow, as it gets peed on within 24hrs. The more expensive pillows have survived, in combination with never leaving them out. Doonas also have a hit and miss 'chemical' response due to the chemicals within them. Definitely avoid duck feather or 'down filled' things, as these are known to be cat attractors (for a wee!).
e)Modify your environment for prevention
Some of this will apply to most/every cat: relieve feline stress daily. This means, feliway on and kept current if needed. Daily play sessions. Daily love sessions. Plenty of cat areas they feel they 'own' and where they are safe - eg cat towers, make tops of cupboards accessible, provide cat beds and caves and boxes etc... And keep the litter box clean! You may need to add a box, especially if you live over different levels. A general rule is '1 litter box per cat plus 1.' Check if the place you have the litterbox is appropriate - is it in a noisy/scary spot? Get another one and put it elsewhere to see if that spot is preferred. Don't use enclosed boxes as these are also associated with litterbox problems.
Some of this will be cat specific. For us, we have a zero 'bunchy' stuff on couches and beds rule. So the minute our feet hit the floor, the bed is made and made smooth. The pillows are enclosed within a cupboard. We can't throw clothes on the bed (I 'throw' them on a vertical fan thing now when I dont have time to put them away!) We don't have couch pillows. The only 'throws' on the couch are cat specific blankets that they think are theirs and they cuddle in daily.
If your bed is at risk, BUY AND USE A MATTRESS PROTECTOR. It will save your mattress. If you are going away, and need to protect the bed just in case, pop one over the whole shebang, and then put a sacrificial covering over the top that is absorbant - or the pee will run off onto the FLOOR, and that is a problem you don't want!
e) Think about recycling/mitigating landfill
Kato is a very, very interlligent cat. Unfortunatetly, this comes hand-in-glove with high sensitivity. He has a wonderful home, and we will NEVER give him up/get rid of him. We accept that he will wee when stressed. So far, his stressors include us going away too often, us fighting, either of us getting seriously ill, him getting sick, dogs constantly barking outside. We are getting better at handling the wee problem so it is not such a major drama. After the last incidence two weeks ago, I have had some further thoughts on how I can improve my practices:
- SCISSORS immediately. Don't try to clean the blanket; cut the soiled bit off before it can wick or touch any other area. Hem up the cut blanket and keep using :)
- Where salvage is impossible/too late, do a regular wash (easy), and DONATE to an animal shelter. We took several things to the Lort Smith Animal Hospital last week, and they do a disinfectant wash and use the blankets sheets and towels. There is even a donation tub out the front!
So, instead, here is a practical guide to dealing with Wee problems...and keeping them wee.
1. Understand the reason why our cat peed outside the litterbox.
Think a bit along the lines of if our cat were a child who wet themselves. As far as I know, children do NOT wet themselves out of vengence on their parents for something, so let's discard that one straight away. Fear, distress, illness, or being 'caught short' are all valid reasons. Now let's make it cat specific. If the litter box is dirty - from the cat's heightened senses - they are going to be 'caught short' of a decent toilet. They're pretty clever in some of the alternative toilet solutions they find! If you cat is fastidious, like our Kato, even a clean litter box next to one with a single deposit, can be 'too dirty' if there are other mitigating factors.
Like illness. Most litterbox 'accidents' are due to illness, so if this is a sudden and unexplained wee, get a check-up. In our case, because there is a pattern to Kato's wee problem (which is actually quite big!), we have to look at the other factors - fear and distress/stress. Bear in mind that for felines, it is established fact that stress becomes illness quite quickly, so you may be looking at several factors. You will need to address them all.
For Kato, stress equals weeing on something that smells very reassurring. Like my bed/bedding/pillow. The guess is that mingling scents with a loved person helps to ease stress. (Although it makes mine go up! Especially if I'm actually IN bed!). Of course, once the feline pee scent is on something, it also might be a signal to 'refresh ' this spot. And then we get to the human reaction - will loud/scary/violent make feline stress levels go up or down? It's our choice - remembering that sane people want to move toward a solution.
2. Choose your response.
Ok, so you know how important this is from a feed/not feed the stress cycle perspective. Be calm and be practical with the cleaning. You can be sad, very sad, with some quiet distress. If our cat is our friend, they won't want to make us cry - friends don't do that. And who hasn't experienced the soft approach of our cat to comfort us in our sadness? So let's keep operating on these levels, lest we scare any higher thinking from the feline brain and make it revert to survival from the scary monster.
3. The practical Stuff
a) Vet check needed?
b) Absorb puddled wee. Use something disposable - old towel/t-shirt/paper towels absorb puddles quickly. It's harder to clean once it's absorbed, especially as wee wicks into fabric fibres and SPREADS inside the fabric.
c) Clean thoroughly, for a cat nose. Or discard. This is your choice, and depending on the wee problem, you may progress toward the discard option when cleaning seems not to have worked. Or you can cut to the chase and immediately throw out, which is the 'safest' option. Cat noses are so sensitive. Even if you cant smell it, keep an eye on things, as your cat might still smell this spot and will be attracted to pee here again later because of the lingering smell that 'needs refreshing'.
Cleaning well is difficult. You will need an enzyme specific cleaner for urine, and many days, as the enzyme needs to sit on/in the fabric to 'eat up' the urine. Then you will undoubtedly want to wash away the smell of that cleaner. And then you might need to treat it again because there is still a pee smell. And again. And again.
I do have a good smellery, so this is the way it goes over here, until we get to the point of 'it's not worth it' - time for a new couch/new mattress/new doona/new blankets/new sheets. We have purchased all of those things! We did go for several years before purchasing the big things, and my cleaning was quite sufficient for human noses. No visitors ever knew!
Now, on the topic of enzyme cleaners, I have used these for 5 years, and I'm at the point where the smell of the cleaner is worse than the smell of the pee (it gives me migraines). I have trialled using straight vinegar. I have read that it does break down cat wee, over time. It is certainly much cheaper (for the gallons that need to be used to soak and run through a couch for example - it has to go all the way through, because pee wicks, remember?). And the smell of vinegar isnt too bad. The three years I persisited in cleaning our couch (3 incidents in 3 years), took several weeks, as drying time is also needed between treatments. We sat on towels on the damp couch during this time.
SO, be encouraged. You can live through cleaning!! With some cats, it won't ever happen again - with ours, it is an ongoing challenge. We needed to start from scratch for best results, so we did bite the bullet and discard and replace.
Re cleaning sheets/doonas - our domestic washing machines don't use enough water. You will need to use a laundromat big machine after enzyme treatment. Do NOT bundle material up; keep the pee area very separate from the 'good' material (wicking remember?!), and soak just this area in a bucket, with the enzyme cleaner. Keep following the enzyme cleaner directions before your final wash in a big machine.
Doonas - you can try drycleaning. Sometimes we have had success. I laundromat wash the doona after drycleaning to reduce chemical odour.
d) Replace things appropriately
In our chemical, man-made world, some things smell like good places to pee for a cat. This is unfortunate. I can't buy a certain Kmart cheap pillow, as it gets peed on within 24hrs. The more expensive pillows have survived, in combination with never leaving them out. Doonas also have a hit and miss 'chemical' response due to the chemicals within them. Definitely avoid duck feather or 'down filled' things, as these are known to be cat attractors (for a wee!).
e)Modify your environment for prevention
Some of this will apply to most/every cat: relieve feline stress daily. This means, feliway on and kept current if needed. Daily play sessions. Daily love sessions. Plenty of cat areas they feel they 'own' and where they are safe - eg cat towers, make tops of cupboards accessible, provide cat beds and caves and boxes etc... And keep the litter box clean! You may need to add a box, especially if you live over different levels. A general rule is '1 litter box per cat plus 1.' Check if the place you have the litterbox is appropriate - is it in a noisy/scary spot? Get another one and put it elsewhere to see if that spot is preferred. Don't use enclosed boxes as these are also associated with litterbox problems.
Some of this will be cat specific. For us, we have a zero 'bunchy' stuff on couches and beds rule. So the minute our feet hit the floor, the bed is made and made smooth. The pillows are enclosed within a cupboard. We can't throw clothes on the bed (I 'throw' them on a vertical fan thing now when I dont have time to put them away!) We don't have couch pillows. The only 'throws' on the couch are cat specific blankets that they think are theirs and they cuddle in daily.
If your bed is at risk, BUY AND USE A MATTRESS PROTECTOR. It will save your mattress. If you are going away, and need to protect the bed just in case, pop one over the whole shebang, and then put a sacrificial covering over the top that is absorbant - or the pee will run off onto the FLOOR, and that is a problem you don't want!
e) Think about recycling/mitigating landfill
Kato is a very, very interlligent cat. Unfortunatetly, this comes hand-in-glove with high sensitivity. He has a wonderful home, and we will NEVER give him up/get rid of him. We accept that he will wee when stressed. So far, his stressors include us going away too often, us fighting, either of us getting seriously ill, him getting sick, dogs constantly barking outside. We are getting better at handling the wee problem so it is not such a major drama. After the last incidence two weeks ago, I have had some further thoughts on how I can improve my practices:
- SCISSORS immediately. Don't try to clean the blanket; cut the soiled bit off before it can wick or touch any other area. Hem up the cut blanket and keep using :)
- Where salvage is impossible/too late, do a regular wash (easy), and DONATE to an animal shelter. We took several things to the Lort Smith Animal Hospital last week, and they do a disinfectant wash and use the blankets sheets and towels. There is even a donation tub out the front!