# Why do my cats keep peeing on my bed? :[



## Chelseanr (Oct 3, 2010)

Hey all, so I've had an ongoing issue with my cats peeing on my bedding!!!! Its getting soooo aggravating because I have a down duvet which is a pain to wash and I just bought all new sheets and covers yadda yadda. When we got my one kitty Ellie about a year and a half ago while she was still super tiny she took to peeing on the bed even though there was a litter box that was always clean in the room (I always keep my wee ones in our walk in closet at night for the first little bit and out in the bedroom during the day while we worked.) She even climbed up and peed right on me while I was laying in bed. I thought for a while afterwards it might have been Zedd because he used to always pee on the floor in our old apartment but after his latest escapade to the vet and all the treatment he received I'm highly doubting it's him anymore, especially because incidents are occurring while we have him isolated at night to one room. So that leaves Mog and Ellie as suspects. Mogs a good cat and we've never had any accident issues with him ever since he was a kitten, he's always used his litter. She also pee's on Rowan's beds too, I've had to wash his beds at least 10 times to get pee out of them. I've taken them all in to have them checked for urinary tract issues, all of them got antibiotics, I've bought additional litter boxes, we clean them every other day. I've relocated them around the house in an attempt to get them to use them instead of my bed or rowans. Right now to help Zedd get well I have one upstairs literally less than 20 feet from the bedroom and I've seen Zedd and mog using it. 

Last night I was all curled up in bed, litter boxes were cleaned yesterday, I snuggle into my duvet and get a face full of cat pee!!!!!! I'm at my wits end, I wash the duvet and the cover 3 times each to get the smell out and spray down and scrub the mattress with that enzyme cleaner stuff and I'm just tired of it now. I also try to keep the door closed but DH being a man and all... ;D I thought it got worse when we got Rowan because someone was mad, but now if we ever leave the door open someone goes in and uses it as a bathroom! 



Any advise would be greatly appreciated, I'm tired of doing animal laundry!!!!


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## HiTideGoldens (Dec 29, 2009)

I have a friend whose cat pees on down comforters, down pillow....basically anything made of down. Maybe that's the culprit with your cat? My friend switched to a down alternative and it stopped.


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## LincolnsMom (Sep 28, 2010)

You can place an old blanket over the down sometimes that helps; or place a bowl of food on the bed when your not there. Cats are very clean and usually not pee where they eat. 

Plus stop in on your vet sometimes when cats do this there is something medically wrong. Have some blood work done and explain to your vet why you are concerned and she should know what to look for.

After all that take to the comforter to the dry cleaner- i know expensive- make sure they know that it has cat pee on it; they have special cleaners that will get the smell out 100%.


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## Rainheart (Nov 28, 2010)

It is usually one of two things. 
1. A UTI
2. A behavior issue
Did you change anything before the peeing on the bed started? How many litter boxes do you have?


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## RedDogs (Jan 30, 2010)

If you're able to... the best person to talk to is a veterinary behaviorist, esp as your vet has checked for UTI/other health problems. I would NOT give the cat access to the room. Put a sign on the door to help remind everyone to keep the door closed. That's the primary way to keep you from having to do the laundry.

Other things to consider:
- This is almost (if not always) a stress behavior.
- You may want to try FAP (Feline Appeasing Pherome) spray/diffuser. In some households this fixes the problems right away. Sometimes it makes things worse....
- Do you know for 100% sure who it is? Have you tried isolating the cats in separate rooms (or only one in the main part of the house but NOT the bed room) to see if you can figure out who may or may not be involved?
- Do you know what kinds of things distress your cats? Are there potentially outside cats causing stress? Relationships between the cats? Other pets in the house hold?
- Long term solutions involve management (restricting access, managing cats, being sure everyone has enough space). But also may need to involve anti-anxiety meds so that the anxiety is relieved and the cat can learn how to properly fit into the house hold and the pattern of inappropriate eliination can be broken.
- Some cats develop a substrate preference, supposedly this is more likely to happen if a cat has a UTI/is in pain and associates the litter box with pain, after a declaw when digging in litter could be painful, and in situations where a cat was scared/startled by someone while using a litter box.
- If you haven't already, try using a few different types of litters, and seeing if the cats prefer specific litters over others (this can be esp helpful in situations where inappropriate elimination is due to substrate preferences!).
- If you haven't already, get big flat rubbermaid type containers instead of store "litter boxes". A 2x3 or 2x4' box is MUCH prefered by most cats. 

And like with dogs, sometimes increasing enrichment (new scents, training, food dispensing toys, etc) and exercise (training, toys, play, food bowls waaaay spread out in the house) are an important part of this sort of plan.

Like i say in some of the dog threads.... It's best if you can consult a vet behaviorist or a VERY cat/behavior savy vet....a nd make a LOT of changes at once. If you make only one or two changes at a time, you're less likely to see progress and have the potential to make the behavior stronger.


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## iansgran (May 29, 2010)

Reddogs has good advice. I had a mad cat who did this. Like she said, has something changed that upset kitty?


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## Chelseanr (Oct 3, 2010)

RedDogs said:


> If you're able to... the best person to talk to is a veterinary behaviorist, esp as your vet has checked for UTI/other health problems. I would NOT give the cat access to the room. Put a sign on the door to help remind everyone to keep the door closed. That's the primary way to keep you from having to do the laundry.
> 
> Other things to consider:
> - This is almost (if not always) a stress behavior.
> ...


This is all very good advise, I do try and keep the door closed at all times but my worse half isn't so on top of it, I remind him pretty much daily. I'm 90% certain that it is ellie doing it in the bedroom, and about 50% sure it's her doing it on Rowan's beds. Zedd used to constantly pee in his own bed when he was a kitten to the point where I just ended up not having a bed for the cats as it was always soiled. I have tried probably 10 different brands of litter, it doesn't seem to change the behavior. I know Zedd is a very clean cat and likes his litter to be very clean so we make sure that both boxes are cleaned every other day and the full litter is changed once a week, there was a marked improvement for a while but it seems to have gone down hill again. We have one Large litter box which they only seem to use for bowel movements, and a second smaller one which they all seem to use to pee, I check the smaller one daily and usually clean it fully more often. I keep telling my boyfriend that we should have 3 boxes (3 cats and all) and he refuses to accept that is the problem and made me get rid of one box in the past. 

I'm fairly certain that all of the recent surprises haven't been Zedd even though he has had many issues in the past. Since he has been unwell for several weeks he mostly keeps to himself in our computer room sleeping, I have food and a litter box there for him for now and one of Rowans beds are in that room and he hasn't used it to eliminate. One of the pee's on Rowans bed happened while Zedd was isolated to a room overnight.... 

Mog hasn't been himself lately, he's been very standoffish and unwilling to come to us for cuddles and love. I think between getting Rowan not long ago and Zedd almost dying he might be feeling a little neglected. Me and Steve have both been off for several weeks and have made a really big effort to give both Mog and Ellie tons of love and attention and Mog just doesn't seem to care either way. He's usually a friendly happy guy so it's been disheartening and I wonder if it might be him... 

It's been a tough couple of months with the animals and I'm tired of feeling like there's always something wrong with them and that they're mad at us...


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## RedDogs (Jan 30, 2010)

They're not mad at you! But they might be stressed.

A few more things
-It sounds like there's a LOT of stress going on and that you don't know for sure who is having problems.
- With 3 cats the 'rule of thumb' would be to have at least 4 boxes. Get a few more boxes...and be creative about where you put them so they don't bother the family members so much.
- Big boxes!
- Maybe temporarily confine cats to separate rooms, and only have one free at a time.... to see if you can help isolate who is the problem AND decrease the stress of any interactions
- Get a sign on the bedroom door as a reminder. Draw a silly illustration on it to help remind your family about the door.
- Look into the DAP
- And find a way to manage the environment for a while. It's hard. But you can do it.... the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to stop.
- Get the unhappy cats checked by the vet as soon as you can.


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## Taz Monkey (Feb 25, 2007)

IMO, every other day is not enough for super clean, persnickety animals like cats. You need to clean the boxes every day, and dump and scrub when they need it. Go back to the vet and demand every test they can do. Medicate. I have one cat on Prozac for 2 years. Works like a charm. But first, clean clean clean. Every day.


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## Taz Monkey (Feb 25, 2007)

And also, just because you've washed things that they've peed on, and you can't smell pee, doesn't mean that the smell is not still there for them. Cats have a very sensitive nose, and if they can still smell the pee, then they think its stillok to go there.


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## Chelseanr (Oct 3, 2010)

Sorry I didn't see the replies here! I sadly only really have room to squeeze maybe 3 boxes into my condo, it's not very big sadly. I keep two of them under the stairs and might keep an extra upstairs in the bedroom for zedd anyways since he despises Rowan and the dog can't get up there when we're not home. I'll probably get a nice big one for upstairs. 

Zedd just was in for a serious vet visit, so he's had every test, screening, xray etc under the sun done and he was always a problem with potty use. I haven't seen him have any accidents since his return home and I've been keeping his separated litter box clean. 
I'm going to take the other two in for a check-up since we've always been low income up until recently they haven't had the vet care they should have and I'd like to take them into this new vet we found, I know she'll take me seriously and try and address our concerns. Her mom is an animal behavior expert appointed by the supreme court I believe so she might have some really good advise. 
I gave Steve a good talkin to the other day when for the third time he left the door open and I had to crawl around on the floor scatting the kitties out after having fallen down the stairs, so I wasn't impressed. 
We do try and clean the boxes daily but with work schedules, rowan, etc its a stretch sometimes to get them done every other day. I will try and make a better effort to clean at least one daily (probably the one they pee in) and add the third box and see if it makes a difference.


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## BayBeams (Jan 3, 2010)

I had a cat that started peeing on my bed after I had been gone ovenight on business. I rarely went away and apparently this was a big enough stressor that it caused him to urinate inappropriately. Unfortunately, it became a daily habit that was difficult to break even though I rarely was gone overnight. A behaviorist suggested that the peeing on the bed was because that was where the smell of his human companions was the most concentrated. 
I used the plug in cat phermones in the room (I forget what it is called) and kept the bed covered with a large sheet of heavy plastic for a while and eventually the cat stopped using my bed as a toilet. I'm not sure if it was because the cat didn't enjoy peeing on plastic or if the phermones helped but either way the habit was broken. The key is to prevent the opportunity for the cat to pee on the bed so the habit can be broken. Also identifying the stressor may help to prevent recurrence.


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## jackie_hubert (Jun 2, 2010)

You might find this article I just posted helpful http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/other-pets/90884-interesting-cat-study.html

Inappropriate elimination is almost always a combination of medical and behavioural issues. When our kitty does it it's deadly because he has urinary issues and it's the first sign of blockage issues. We clean out the litterbox twice a day with one cat in the house and switch the whole litter every 5 days.

One thing you can try is putting some of the material that they like to pee on in the litterbox under litter. Start with just a little litter, if any, and increase very gradually. ALWAYS have one more litter box than you have cats and always in private, well ventilated areas with multiple escape routes. 

You're not alone. Visit the cat forum for more support if you need it.


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