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Weltall Zero

Game Developer
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
19,343
Madrid
Cats don't pee outside the box because they're mad at anyone. That's a myth.

Exactly. Cat's capabilities to hold grudges are vastly overestimated by humans, who simply project human behaviour on them; and even if they did, they can't make a logical leap like "peeing here" = "punishing my owner".

I told my SO about this, and her immediate comment was "is the sofa leather?". From the pic I'm assuming it is. There's certain materials that cats seem to dislike the smell of or rather they want to "overwrite" with their own (feathers being another, which is why feather duvets are also frequent victims of this).

Once a cat forms the habit of peeing somewhere, they will often repeat this behaviour, because a) they're animals that love routine, and b) the place already smells of pee, i.e. a "cat toilet". Sometimes getting rid of all traces of odor helps (not just what humans can smell; cats are obviously much more sensitive), sometimes it doesn't.

If using smells they don't like, as suggested in the thread, doesn't work, try a kind of opposite approach: leaving a bowl with food where cats pee usually deters them from doing so, as they never pee where they eat. Obviously this is easier when the specific spot is on the ground, but if you can put a bowl with food on your spot of the couch whenever you're not in there, it may break the habit.

If the cat is peeing outside the box it's almost certainly because the box is either filthy and needs to be cleaned more regularly, or something hurts when he pees and he has begun to associate that pain with the box so he goes somewhere else he feels comfortable, which is often a place that smells like their favorite human.

Yep. In more general terms, cats tend to do this if they feel more confortable doing it there than their litter box. The first thing to rule out is urinary infections, bladder crystals and so on, but besides these causes, a very common one is litter itself; some litter is actually irritant to cats, silica most prominently.

To put her down. Can't stand cats.

I guess I should not post my answer to that if I don't want to get banned.
 

Weltall Zero

Game Developer
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
19,343
Madrid
But my TV is perfectly aligned with my spot on the couch... what am I supposed to do? Angle my TV slightly? Who do you take me for, a sucker? (I'm mostly kidding, but my seat reclines and I'll be damned if I move for this cat)

Jokes aside, it probably has nothing to do with it being your spot, it's just been marked now. Actually, can you swap the cushions? This may help rule out some causes.
 

Linkura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,943
1. Probably a UTI, get to a vet asap even just to rule it out as they can be serious. When one of our cats started peeing out of the box all of a sudden, she had a UTI. DON'T just "monitor her." If you wait it could get to be too late. Call the vet tomorrow morning.
2. Is she fixed?
 

Wereroku

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,192
Have you gotten a urine neutralizer to clean the spot? As long as it still has a urine smell they will keep using it. Also as others have said my older car started having issues with peeing on the bed and we found out he had a bladder infection and couldn't hold his urine as well as normal. Even with that cleared up we still had to move the litter box closer to his normal sleeping areas so he didn't have to travel so far to use the box.
 
OP
OP
sph3re

sph3re

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
8,395
1. Probably a UTI, get to a vet asap even just to rule it out as they can be serious. When one of our cats started peeing out of the box all of a sudden, she had a UTI.
2. Is she fixed?
Yeah, they're all fixed. Her brothers kept humping her, so we had to do something, lol. We'll take her to a vet soon.
Have you gotten a urine neutralizer to clean the spot? As long as it still has a urine smell they will keep using it. Also as others have said my older car started having issues with peeing on the bed and we found out he had a bladder infection and couldn't hold his urine as well as normal. Even with that cleared up we still had to move the litter box closer to his normal sleeping areas so he didn't have to travel so far to use the box.
Yeah, I've got this Black Diamond "Ur-In Control" spray. I sprayed it on my couch last night and I caught her peeing on the couch this morning. I guess she noticed the smell was gone and she wanted to mark her spot? I don't know what her problem is, but we'll take her to the vet to rule out a UTI.
Jokes aside, it probably has nothing to do with it being your spot, it's just been marked now. Actually, can you swap the cushions? This may help rule out some causes.
Nah, the cushions don't come off. That would have been a great idea, though :/
 

Linkura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,943
Yeah, they're all fixed. Her brothers kept humping her, so we had to do something, lol. We'll take her to a vet soon.
Dude.... one of my cats would hump his brothers occasionally for years. After being fixed for years.

If you need to neutralize urine, Nature's Miracle is pretty good. One of our cats sometimes goes outside of the box (behavioral marking habit he's had since we found him in our yard, and he was already estimated 10-12 years old by then so it's a habit he'll have for life) and it helps.
 

Carn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,911
The Netherlands
- try adding a liter box. We have 2 cats and adding a 3rd box helped
- it's a chore, but get a big piece of plastic to cover up the couch when you're away. She probably won't pee on that, but if she does, it's a bit easier to clean. You might need to keep this up for a few weeks tho, patience is key.
 
OP
OP
sph3re

sph3re

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
8,395
Dude.... one of my cats would hump his brothers occasionally for years. After being fixed for years.

If you need to neutralize urine, Nature's Miracle is pretty good. One of our cats sometimes goes outside of the box (behavioral marking habit he's had since we found him in our yard, and he was already estimated 10-12 years old by then so it's a habit he'll have for life) and it helps.
They haven't humped each other since, thank god, lol.

I'll check out Nature's Miracle, whatever it takes to stop this cat from peeing on the couch. We're getting a new couch in a few weeks, so I need to nip this in the bud.
- try adding a liter box. We have 2 cats and adding a 3rd box helped
- it's a chore, but get a big piece of plastic to cover up the couch when you're away. She probably won't pee on that, but if she does, it's a bit easier to clean. You might need to keep this up for a few weeks tho, patience is key.
I'll grab another litter box to hopefully mitigate this. We also ordered a couch cover a few days ago to hopefully avoid this in the future.
 

Linkura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,943
They haven't humped each other since, thank god, lol.

I'll check out Nature's Miracle, whatever it takes to stop this cat from peeing on the couch. We're getting a new couch in a few weeks, so I need to nip this in the bud.

I'll grab another litter box to hopefully mitigate this. We also ordered a couch cover a few days ago to hopefully avoid this in the future.
Again, your first stop should be the vet.
 

Avitus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,898
Some cats are picky about how clean their box is. Others don't like getting litter stuck on their paws, so they will look to pee on blankets/towels/whatever is soft. Could be the mentioned UTI, take the cat to the vet just to be sure.
 

DarrenM

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,705
As others have said it's a UTI. The cat is peeing in a place you frequent because she's trying to show you something is wrong.

Some antibiotics from the vet and the cat will be back to normal after a few days.
 

Housecat

Member
Oct 25, 2017
673
One of my cats did the same thing on a carpet when she was little. I drenced the spot in "Urine off" I think it was called, which breaks down the enzymes in the cat pee. It's not enough to just get rid of the smell that we smell. I did it several times, then I put foil over it as they don't like stepping on foil . I kept it covered in foil for like 2 weeks. She was weird when she was little, couldn't decided which litterbox to use, would run from one to the other, but after I did all that she stopped peeing there and kept to one of the three litter boxes, like she was no longer confused.
 

Endymion

Member
Oct 27, 2017
749
We have a cat that pees outside of the litter box (though she will sometimes pee in it); unfortunately she's been doing it since my fiancee got her as a kitten. The worst time was when she peed on our bed right before we were going to go to sleep, had to make a late night Target run for some new sheets. :P No UTI in our cat's case, seems like some behavioral issue from before my fiancee had her. We tried different litter boxes, different litter box positions, etc. Fortunately my fiancee had the idea to try to puppy training pads and she consistently pees on those. Still not great, but at least it keeps it off the furniture. Might be worth trying as a temporary stop gap.
 

mAcOdIn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,978
I'm telling you, try this
fc18f116-e53d-4c7f-a96f-a1bc54db6e91_1.cb92c6fe32f38d0d9693de14111032c2.jpeg
 

Rory

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,159
Take both cats to the vet. The brother humping her indicates that something went wrong fixing. Sometimes there are leftovers in the cat that keep producing hormones (therefore attract males).