Floyd not uruniating consistently in his litter box

[Jen]

Hello: I’m not sure what to do now - Floyd (almost 16 years old) has been diabetic for about five years now, which has never been well controlled (he’s on lantus). A little more than a year ago he was diagnosed with hyperthyroid, for which he takes pills twice daily and I understand is controlled. Lately, he has been urinating outside of his box… Once on my husband’s robe (he left it on the floor for the first time ever and paid the price), and three times now in my office when I was in the room. For the last few months, he can’t make a car trip to our cottage (2 hours in his box) without urinating. We have two litters at home, although both are in the basement. Last evening, he urinated in my office, a very long, steady pee, and then proceeded to go downstairs and use his litter for a poop, which was somewhat unproductive (one small turd) and strained.
I’ve thought about adding a litter to my office (oh joy), but as I mentioned, he had no trouble going downstairs to defecate. Plus, my husband is allergic to cats; he can tolerate one cat in the house, but having a litter close to where we sleep may be problematic (although do-able).
There have been no changes in the household; I can't imagine that it is behavioral. His appetite is good, although he no longer completely finishes his meals, where as he used to devour them. He also drops some of his food in his water bowl - a new habit. He eats Purina DM canned exclusively.
I am taking him to the vet today, but lately, we’ve spent well over a thousand dollars on blood panels, etc. He was checked for a bladder infection several weeks ago. I am wondering if we might be having kidney issues now.
I suppose I’m venting as much as looking for advice, but does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Jen
PS - I also posted this in the Welcome to the group forum. Sorry for my confusion any my inability to move it; I hope it’s OK that I posted it over here too.
Thanks for all your help - this is a great group!!!

 

[Capoo]

Hi Jen,

I have also read your post in the Welcome to the Group forum, and the answers to it.
Usually, when a cat pees outside his litter box, it means that something is going wrong.
First : the litter box isn't proper enough according to your cat's criteria, but I'm quite sure that it's not the case here
Second : he has a bladder infection, and thus your cat associates the litter box to pain. This has to be checked by a vet.
Third : the cat cannot retain himself from peeing at the moment M, and cannot take his time to go to his litter box. Thus, he pees wherever he is. This can be caused by unregulated diabetes, or by something else that need to be checked by a vet (kidney failure, coagulopathy.... The list is endless).

Do you have an up-to-date spreadsheet?
And do you test for ketones?


At this time, you need a big hug, so here it is :


Keep us posted after your trip to the vet!

 

[Vyktors Mum]

I understand that a lot of bladder infections don't show up in testing so it might be worth trying a round of antibiotics anyway.

Hope you can get this sorted easily enough cat pee on carpet is not fun! My little man started peeing inappropriately for a little bit when his diabetes wasn't so well controlled. Then the problem was getting him to stop repeeing where he had previously gone. So much cleaning with various products but in the end I had to block him off from the pee areas to break the habit.

 

[Elena]

Our Perkins stopped using the litter box too, he now uses bed pads to go pee pee on. He uses the ones for people, they are bigger and cheaper than wee wee pads for dogs.

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi Jen,
My cat Sheba wees outside the litter box periodically. At first both the vet and I thought it was a UTI and she was given antibiotics but it made no difference. She also had some blood in her urine which was not visible...just showed up on the urine dipstick. She had an ultrasound to rule out other issues....Ultrasound of bladder normal.
She was diagnosed with idiopathic cystitis, which is part of a group of problems under the banner of FLUDT. Below is a link. If it is FLUDT there are several things you can do to ease the problem. It tends to come and go.
I also agree with Serryn @Vyktors Mum that it would be worthwhile to give a course of antibiotics even if the urine test came back negative, just to make sure it is not a UTI.
http://icatcare.org/advice/feline-lower-urinary-tract-disease-flutd