Cat Has Anxiety and Peeing

Hi A.,
Since you've ruled out physical illness. You can try a few things:
- You might try confining her to a room or small section of the house to force her to use the litter box and break the pattern. This small area may make her more secure and less anxious too. Visit her often for play, etc. Make sure everything that has been peed on is cleaned very well (lots of vinagar) and professionally cleaned if possible. If they can smell the spot they may go again there. Do this for several weeks, then let her out supervised and gradually increase the time out if no accidents. I know this is a pain, but you need to break the pattern then give her more and more access for good behavior. Scolding, yelling, smelling the spot does not work with cats and will make them more anxious. So as hard as it is be loving.
- Play with her in the places she has peed, using toys and catnip, they usually won't pee where they play and have fun. Close off rooms that are primarily your husbands.
- You can also try feeding her in those places as well. Since cats are so clean, she won't want to eat where she has peed. And have your husband participate.
- I'm also wondering, does she like the dog? Since she is 2 1/2 when did this start? What's new to the picture that wasn't there before the peeing. If your husband has always been around, this may not be the problem. This is a tough problem that I've had a couple of friends encounter and one of them ended up finding an older single woman who wanted to adopt her cat and things worked out wonderfully for the woman and the cat as the calm household was better. The other friend ended up letting her cat go outside and inside which I hate, because there is too much that can happen to them especially if they are declawed. However the cat does great now and doesn't pee on her husbands stuff anymore.

good luck, K.

I had a similar problem with my cat and my vet prescribed anti-anxiety pills for her. I didn't have any luck with feliway...

Hello...I feel your pain. We had three cats and our third cat freaked out as you described when I had to go out of town for a few days. He had already been with us for about three years and for some reason something changed while I was away. While I was gone he started to pee everywhere in our house...closet, stairs, living/dining room carpets...you name it. It was horrible! We took him to the vet and had him tested every few months for infections, crystals, etc. and we could never find a true cause for his behavior. We tried feliway, pellet litter, aluminum foil where he already peed to cover the scent and even ucalyptus leaves with no luck. We tried herbal remedies in addition to anti-anxiety meds. They helped a little but not enough to say the situation was corrected. The anti-anxiety meds left him dazed and confused. He was like a cat zombie and not himself. For this reason, we took him off the pills. His behavior continued and became worse once we had kids. He peed in their crib, car seat, stroller and even on some of their toys. We finally gave up and gave him to a shelter once he started to poop as well. It was a difficult decision, but I could not live with the fact of never knowing what I would wake up to in the morning as I frantically searched the house for new piles/stains.

Good luck...hopefully your story will have a happier ending.

My sister in law moved in with us while going through an illness, she brought her cat. The cat was used to living with just her, and had all of it's life. We are a family of 6! The cat had major anxiety and was peeing on clothes or blankets in the house. The vet suggested a phermone that was in a container like a glade plug in. It is a liguid that you put in the container and plug in and it slow releases. We have a large 2 story house so we bought 3 for upstairs and 3 for downstairs. It worked like a charm! As long as they lived here we bought refills and kept them full. It was worth it!! Good luck.

Hope some of the other advice helps. Cats do this. I had one that peed on my bed for close to ten years when I was out of the house to let me know he was not happy about being left, but he did not do it every time I left the house. There was no rhyme or reason to when he did it and one time when I was out of town, he peed on my roommate's bed because he knew she was home to recognize his displeasure. I finally decided he would not quit so I just made sure my bedroom door was shut every time we left the house. Then one day he just stopped, never did it again. I hope some of the other remedies will work for you.

Talk to your veterinarian about putting your cat on anti-depressants. I had to do that with one of my cats and it has worked out great! Good Luck!