Stop Your Cat Peeing Everywhere - Guaranteed 9 Step Plan

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If you are wondering how to stop a cat from peeing everywhere you've come to the right place! Today I'm going to give you nine tips for how to stop your cat from spraying in the house or urinating outside their litter box.

Having a cat peeing everywhere but the litter box or urine spraying all over the house is incredibly stressful. Not just for you but also for your cat.

Stop a cat from peeing everywhere with these 9 simple steps!

How To Stop Your Cat Peeing Outside Their Litter Tray

1. Understand why cat’s spray

2. Determine if they are spraying or urinating (there’s a big difference)

3. Identify underlying health issues

4. Neuter your cat

5. Reduce stress levels

6. Litter box management

7. Resource location (litter, food + water)

8. Proper clean-up

9. Actions to avoid

Why cats spray urine

Spraying is a marking behavior. They are leaving their urine scent mark in their environment to let other cats know that they're around. It helps them control their territory as well as avoid conflict with other cats.

Knowing this will help you figure out why your cat is spraying and help understand why some of the steps to stop your cat urinating everywhere might work.

The difference between urination or urine spraying

When your cat is spraying they will typically back up to a vertical surface, like a wall or the side of your couch. They will often lift their tail, it may twitch a little bit and the urine will spray out onto that vertical surface.

On the other hand with inappropriate urinating, they will get into a crouching position and they will urinate as though they're urinating normally. They might strain a little bit but they will be urinating on a horizontal surface. That's really the big difference between urination and spraying.

This is vital to identify because the causes of spraying and inappropriate urination are very different and so the techniques to stop your cat peeing everywhere will also be different.

Identify any underlying health problems

Step number three is to make sure there's no underlying medical condition. This is definitely the case if your cat is urinating inappropriately rather than spraying. If your cat is squatting but they're not using their litter tray, they're going in different parts of the house then this might be a sign that something else is going on.

There are a whole range of different conditions that can end up causing inappropriate urination in cats. This may include things like arthritis, diabetes and kidney disease where there may be either difficulty getting into the litter tray or your cat may be just producing so much urine they really just need to go all the time. Other conditions that actually affect the bladder and urinary tract itself can also cause problem peeing. Diseases like cystitis, bladder tumors and bladder stones.

If there's anything like that going on then obviously we need to tackle the root cause or else getting your cat to stop peeing everywhere will be really hard.

Get your cat neutered

Step number four is to check that your cat is neutered. This might seem like an obvious thing but our cats who are neutered are much less likely to spray. They've got less of a drive to maintain a territory or to defend that territory. They're generally less stressed as well. So if your cat is spraying and they are entire then getting them neutered will definitely help stop them urinating everywhere.

There are so many other reasons that we should be getting our cats spayed or castrated and I've got a article that lets you know the benefits of neutering your cat and also when you should consider getting your cat neutered

Reduce your cats stress levels

Stress can really be the main causes of your cat wanting to mark their territory. And not just mark their territory, to saturate it! As well as spraying, they might also be clawing and scratching the furniture, again just trying to mark out their territory. Stress is a huge issue in cats and it's often one that we don't recognize as well as we should. This is because the signs of stress in cats can be very subtle.

Spraying urine everywhere is not subtle and is a big sign a cat is stressed.

Cats can be stressed about a lot of different things and there are a whole number of ways that we can go about correcting these. This might involve environmental changes, making sure other cats aren't coming into your house and eating their food as well as making sure there's the right number of food bowls and litter trays depending on the number of cats in your house. That's just the start though and I've got a lot of other tips in my article all about reducing stress in cats.

If you're not convinced your cat is stressed then see if they are showing any of the other signs of stress cats can show.

Litter box management

Litter tray management involves thinking about what type of litter you're using. Some cats will really like just one type of litter. This may be unscented and you're using a scented cat litter. They might dislike a clay based one that can clump and stick to the soles of their feet. They might prefer just a sprinkling of litter or a really full litter box.

My preference is to use an unscented, non-clumping paper or sawdust cat litter like this one.

Also consider the litter tray type as well:

• If your cat has arthritis then they might find actually getting into a high lip litter tray quite difficult. A larger, more shallow tray would then be best, like this one designed specifically for senior cats.

• Other cats prefer absolute privacy when toileting and so you might want to consider a covered litter box.

Think about where you're putting your litter tray. Cats will generally like a private enclosed area, not a really busy area like the middle of the hall or by the front door. In the corner of a quiet room is often best.

Your cats litter tray should also be cleaned regularly. Again some cats are really fussy and will only want to use a litter tray once. Either that or they won't use it if another cat has been in there. Making sure that you clean the litter tray regularly enough and then having enough litter trays is very important.

As a general rule you should also have one more litter tray than the number of cats in the house. This means if you've got two cats you need three litter trays and if you've got four cats then really you need five litter trays. They also all need to be in different locations!

Move your cats litter tray and food bowls

If there's still a problem after all of these other tips and especially if your cat is spraying or urinating in one spot in particular, what you can try and do is move their litter tray to this spot. It might not be where you want it but if you can get them back using the litter tray you can then slowly move the tray back to a position where you're happy for that litter tray to be.

Alternatively you can even try putting their food and water in that area. Cats are really clean hygienic animals in general and they don't like peeing where their food or their water is. Putting them in the problem spot can help put them off. Be careful however that this doesn't actually just stress them out more!

How to clean up cat urine

Cleaning up cat urine properly is incredibly important. There are certain things within a cat's urine that will attract them back to the same spot time and again. This means they will often keep re-marking in the same spot.

There are various dedicated anti-urine sprays and cleaners which do a great job of not just removing the odor of cat urine, but also destroying the chemicals which will attract your cat back time and again.

Another option, if you don’t want to purchase a dedicated cleaner, is to use is biological washing powder. Mix this with a bit of water and then really scrub the area and allow it to soak in. What will happen is the enzymes in that biological washing powder will help break down all of the things that are attracting your cat back to that area.

Don't do this to stop your cat peeing everywhere

Step number nine is things to avoid. You should definitely avoid negative reinforcement. Don't shout at your cat, rub their nose in it or punish them in any way. All that's going to do is make them more stressed. They're probably not going to understand what they've done wrong and that's probably only going to make the problem worse. It's certainly not going to improve the situation.

Another thing that we should avoid doing in cats that are urinating everywhere or peeing outside of their litter tray is to use ammonia based cleaning products. Ammonia is actually what attracts cats back to the area so by using things like bleach you can actually be perpetuating the problem.

The last thing that you should avoid doing is avoid using deterrent sprays. Again if you've got something in a cat's environment that really is repelling them it's only going to cause them more stress. While they might not urinate in that particular spot again they're just going to go and find somewhere else to pee and it's not going to be in the litter tray.

And if you’ve tried everything and your cat is still spraying all over the house these are your next steps.

health, catDr Alex AveryApril 27, 2018cat, cystitis, stress, behaviour, arthritis Facebook0 Twitter Pinterest0 0 Likes Previous

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