Bad cat habits, what are my options?

[Jeanette13]

As an alternative to euthanizing her (which I agree is really the only option if you are at the end of your rope and getting rid of her, one way or another, is the only option you seem to have left), would your hubby be willing to try confining her to an outdoor pen? If she had a large outdoor pen with a top and a secure shelter for when the weather is bad, then she would no longer have access to your belongings. She could spray in her pen without causing too much of a problem.

I know it's not the same, but for a while one of my cats refused to urinate in the litter box. It started originally as recurring bladder infections with crystals and then developed into a litter box aversion that was purely behavioral. We were about where you were now, he had ruined one too many of our things and we just couldn't allow it to continue. The vet put him on amitriptyline (which is a tricyclid antidepressant) and we confined him to a dog crate for about 2-3 months so that he had no option other than peeing on the towel lining the crate or the litter box in the crate. For a while we were washing out the crate daily because he still refused to use the litter box, but after a while he started using the box again. Finally we were able to wean him off the amitrityline and let him rejoin the household. Confining your cat to a pen may have the same effect in the long run of retraining her not to urinate in inappropriate places. Or it may not, but it could certainly buy your kids more time with a beloved pet and save your belongings at the same time.

The pen is a good suggestion, but our yard is really small, and we just put in the chicken run! This cat never had a problem using the litter box to urinate, so I don't know if your course of action with confining the animal would change anything. I will ask my vet about this as a possibility though!
Thanks for your input, I'm glad you were able to retrain your cat.

 

[philter4]

I have never raised house cats but in the past I have raised exotics, about 15 years ago my wife and I (we never had children) had a female serval that was going to be a pet. She was spayed at a young age and bottle fed and raised indoors. Once she was about 3 or 4 years old she began to spray and if you think a house cat is bad, imagine one that weighs 30 pounds!!!

Cats spray for several reasons, mostly to mark their territory. The other reason for cats to spray is stress. It is not the stress you may be thinking of, it could be anything such as a new pet or a different neighborhood cat or dog, it would be something that would interfere with her routine so she feels the need to compensate the cause of the stress with marking her territory.

She would mostly spray when my wife was menstuating but during that time she would spray several times a day and in the worst places, the bed pillows or clean laundry, anywhere where she wanted us to know was hers and not ours. As I mentioned above I did a lot of research and it turns out that most spraying of altered cats (spayed or neutered) is because of stress. Now to you and me it doesn't seem that your cat is stressed but stress can come in so many different forms, for instance according to our vet my wife's cycle stressed Binki out to the point where she needed to tell us where her territory was because of the pheromones that occur during that time of the month and she was trying to get my wife to stay away from those areas. Your cat may just smell another neighborhood cat or dog and that is what she is responding to. We solved the problem by keeping her out of the bedroom and laundry room then putting her outside during those times of the month. Because we raised and bred exotic animals we had a large area in the back with all of the pens for other animals so the smell was no where near the house and there were no close neighbors.

Good luck and I hope you find the cause, that will be the only way to stop the behavior.

 

[Jeanette13]

Cats spray for several reasons, mostly to mark their territory. The other reason for cats to spray is stress. It is not the stress you may be thinking of, it could be anything such as a new pet or a different neighborhood cat or dog, it would be something that would interfere with her routine so she feels the need to compensate the cause of the stress with marking her territory.

Good luck and I hope you find the cause, that will be the only way to stop the behavior.

I've done some (a lot!) reading online about this problem, and have read about this being stress-related. There's no way she's coming back in the house (among other things she peed on our stove, which we didn't realize until we turned it on, and then all ran gagging out of the house...), and I can't really control the outdoors. We think that this problem of hers probably got her kicked out of her prior home, since she's otherwise such a well-behaved cat. She didn't even get up on our furniture, until our kids "retrained" her

. Seems she has some mental health issues - ugh.

I really am grateful for everybody's input!

 

[copperpatina]

some female cats will spray like a male i use some stuff called natures miracle just for cats it is the best for removing the oder many times if you get the oder gone they will not return to spay that area again