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Old January 16th, 2009, 05:19 PM
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Stacer Stacer is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ontario
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Your problem sounds all too familiar. We have 2 cats as well, a male and a female. Our male has had urinary issues most of his life (1 bout of FLUTD and ongoing inappropriate urination). The last year has been the worst. He prefers to pee on clothing though (easier to clean than furiture, lol). This past summer he peed on both of the beds in the spare room (although I think my friends' little girl may have peed the bed before Angus decided to add his own pee to the mix and then he got locked in there all day accidentally and relieved himself on the second mattress ).

Anyways, our approach has been:

1) To eliminate all previous urine scents that might attract him to urinate in the same spot again. We got rid of the mattresses, replaced them with new ones and put mattress protectors on, so far so good. Since Ford has urinated on your bed many times, perhaps getting a new mattress might be in order (expensive, I know, but getting the scent of his urine out of the house is important. And purchase a good mattress protector (we got Protect-a-Bed covers) that is water proof.

2) Any clothing that has been urinated on has been soaked in enzyme stuff and triple washed with white vinegar. I've even went so far as to throw some clothes out that don't seem to lose the faint smell of his pee. We've also learned not to leave clothes lying around. I bought a hamper with a nice solid lid and we keep the closet door closed at all times.

3) Feliway diffusers and spray. Our vet recommed that we spray a collar down with Feliway and put it on him so that the calming aromas are around him all the time. It seems to make a difference and is way cheaper than putting diffusers all over the house.

4) Since his problem is definitely behavioural or idiopathic cystitis (recurrence of FLUTD has been ruled out several times), we switched the cats to exclusively canned food. Again, it seems to have helped.


I think our best move was to get rid of things that he's peed on, even the faintest odour that we couldn't smell, he defintely could and would pee in the same places over and over. Unfortunately, your Ford has been peeing on some big ticket items in your apartment that aren't as easily replaced. Could you get rid of your couch and replace it with a used one until you get his issues under control? Maybe having an environment free of his own urine scent will help him? Believe me, no matter how well you try to clean furniture or mattresses, the smell is still there and cats will always pee where the smell of urine is, guaranteed.

I think the key is diet and environment.

Goodluck!!
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