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If you have a cat...


Does your cat pee all over your house?  

1 member has voted

  1. 1. Does your cat pee all over your house?

    • I have a male cat, and he does not pee all over my house
      92
    • I have a male cat, and all my stuff is covered with pee because of him
      8
    • I have a female cat, and she only pees where she is supposed to
      79
    • My female cat hates me and pees in inappropriate places, including but not limited to my bed
      10
    • My cat or cats are so complicated, their peeing habits defy simple categorization
      28


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My first attempt at a poll on this site, I believe...

 

We're surprising the kids with a kitten for Christmas (they'll find out about it on christmas, and we'll get one from a shelter or rescue after Christmas). Either coincidentally or because someone is trying to tell me something, lately I keep hearing stories about terrible cats who pee all over the house. I do not want a cat who pees all over my house. The cats in these stories tend to be male. I've had 3 cats as an adult, 2 female and one male. None of them peed all over my stuff (well, my male cat did for a little while, but not until he was dying of liver disease, so I forgive him). But I thought a slightly bigger sample size might be helpful. So...should I steer the kids away from a male cat? Thoughts, anecdotes, etc?

 

ETA: you should be able to pick more than one option if you have multiple cats.

Edited by kokotg
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We have a neutered male cat. We had the operation done as early as possible (I believe he was 4mos) and have not had an issue with him. He has, in the past, peed in my houseplant :glare: repeatedly :glare::glare: until we put pinecones on top of dirt. Now he's been really good about not peeing anywhere else.

 

He did poop under my dd's chair (at the kitchen table) when she went away and was gone for an entire weekend, so he's not free of behavioral issues :glare: but that was a one-time thing and he's been good ever since she came home again. :rolleyes:

 

ETA: I should also add that he's a completely indoor cat and I do not allow any sort of access to the outside world. I don't want him to get ideas that he needs to mark his territory or whatever silly ideas cats get (believe me, there are lots of them) :tongue_smilie:

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I've had both genders without issues... and one female cat that was only "fine" as long as it was an "only cat." When she occupied the same space as another cat, she became very territorial, and mess ensued. Once the offending cat was removed from her territory, she was fine... well, until she was 19 years old and became incontinent.

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I've got a male and female - littermates actually. I've never had a problem with peeing anywhere except the litter box or the bathroom rug. The female will pee on the bathroom rug if her box is not as sanitary as she likes.

 

They go outside most of the time during the spring, summer and fall. In the winter the female will not remove herself from the warmest place in the house.

 

They were both fixed as early as possible.

 

I'll never have a male cat unneutered.

 

I've never had a cat pee on the bed. I had a dog that would pee on the bed out of spite.

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Male cats and female dogs. That's the rule my parents taught me, and bad things have ensued when we have not followed it. :D

 

I agree just out of personal preference. But I can say that male cats are more prone to urinary disease, which is the usual reason for peeing everywhere. If you feed a better quality cat food, and clean the litterbox everyday, your cat own't pee everywhere.

 

If you let the box get dirty don't be suprised if the kitty finds a more attractive place to go.

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Male cats and female dogs. That's the rule my parents taught me, and bad things have ensued when we have not followed it. :D

 

I usually follow this rule also. That said. I currently have an ungodly amount of indoor cats at the moment. I have had cats my entire life. Lots of them! It just depends on the cat. I currently have a 9 yr old female, that doesn't like a messy house, and will make a "mess" if things get really cluttered. It stresses her out, so she pees on it to say "clean up this mess". I have a friend who won't have males, because she thinks they pee everywhere. Males do tend to "mark their territory", but as long as you get them fixed at 6 months, you shouldn't have a problem. I have a male that is always trying to mark his territory, but he is "shooting blanks" as dh says, so there is no smell. My point: It is the individual cat, not the gender.:D

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I have had many cats throughout my life. I like females best, they seem to have more personality (or at least mine have.) Neutered males are very sweet.

 

I have only had problems with inappropriate peeing twice. Once, was a male cat with urinary tract problems which later led to his death (we were devastated).

 

The other was an elderly female that became incredibly cranky, loud (possibly deaf and she yelled all the time) and mean natured. The elderly female was my favorite of all time and I cried like a loon when she died. I missed her so badly I went to the animal shelter and asked if they had a loud, irritable, incontinent cat I could adopt, they looked at me like I was crazy. :lol: I took home two sweetie pie kittens instead.

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We've had multiples of both types and never had any problems ever unless there was a health issue on the part of the cat.

 

All our males have always been fixed from an early age.

 

All our cats live both indoors and outdoors pretty much at will (or whenever they can get a servant to open the door for them). We live on a farm on a rarely traveled road that insists cars go slow on it or they have car/road issues, so having outdoor cats is perfectly fine.

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My experiences with cats over almost 30 years (first few were farm cats):

 

female tuxedo fixed after 2 litters--indoor/outdoor, overweight, mouser/birder/squirreler, never had accidents

 

male grey striped tiger unaltered--mainly outdoor, sprayed outside

 

male longhaired grey striped tiger nuetered--mainly indoor, a real baby, never had accidents

 

female small calico died while being fixed--never had accidents

 

solid white female spayed--indoor only, never had accidents

 

solid black female spayed--indoor only, never had accidents

 

small female calico, spayed--used our laundry for a litterbox after my oldest was born, this was due to jealousy issues

 

solid white female spayed--indoor only, we can't have rugs, leave clothes, blankets or plastic bags on the floor because she will go on them. We only keep her because my oldest is so attatched.

 

solid black male, fixed--indoor only, never had accidents

 

small female orange striped, spayed--needed extra help potty training then never had accidents.

 

I think a lot of it has to do with what was acceptable at the place they are born. Males do spray but not if you get them fixed in time. I had more problems with males biting and being difficult. Some cats are better than others.

 

Get a good book or 10 on cat behavior, read cat fancy or other magazine and get a good idea on how to act around the cats so that difficult behaviors don't develop.

 

Hope you get a good one.

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Can't vote, as I have three female and one male, all spayed, and all sharing ONE litter box (I clean it twice daily - I have no sense of smell so makes sense I do it ;) ).

 

Our vet keeps saying each cat needs its own box - no way! They are fine with sharing. The only rare times we get accidents it has turned out on of the cats had a UTI.

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, so I forgive him). But I thought a slightly bigger sample size might be helpful. So...should I steer the kids away from a male cat? Thoughts, anecdotes, etc?

 

 

 

Currently, I have only a female cat, and she pees where she's supposed to :) In the past, I've had other cats (1 other female, 2 males, different time periods), and had issues with both male cats peeing on stuff. The first one we got from a pet adoption and we ended up taking him back because he would not use his box. The second one we had for about 10 years, and his issues seemed to be off and on (or maybe I just didn't always find out), but we finally ended up taking him out to my fil's acerage because he started pooping outside his box too (we tried a bigger box, multiple boxes, confining him to a small area to retrain, etc.)

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We had a neutered male cat before my children were born and he never peed outside of the litter box. Never had a problem with him, but he was neutered as soon as he was old enough to have it done.

 

We now have 2 female cats. They also have never peed outside the litter box. One does have a sensitive stomach so I have to buy her special food or she pukes under beds (uugh).

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I have had 3 indoor male cats over the years and none of them peed outside of the litter box.

 

My first male cat learned to go to the door and meow when he needed to go to the restroom and as soon as his business was done he would come back to the door and scratch to be let in. There was someone at home all the time, so we never had a litterbox with him.

 

My second cat came to us declawed and had problems with holding his stool because of that procedure... he eventually developed a megacolon and a bad attitude (I think from not feeling well most of the time). The vet says it is not uncommon for them to hold their stool after a declawing since the pain in their feet keep them from wanting to dig in the litter box. He eventually passed away from cancer.

 

Our third male cat is great! We rescued him and his sister from a shelter when they were about 5-6 months old and they are SOOOOOO sweet! They are not declawed, we use "softpaws" claw covers and they do fine. These two cats have the best attitude and are very affectionate. They have always used the litterbox without any problems (we have had them 2 years and no accidents yet).

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I have had 2 cats for the last 11 years - one male, one female (my female died from cancer this summer :(). Over that 11 years, neither of my two cats peed anywhere other than the litter box except for one time each. My girl cat peed on the kitchen counter once when I brought a rescue cat in to spend the night. My male cat peed on a pile of clothes in the laundry room once because his litter box was full and I had neglected to change it.

 

Other than those two times in 11 years, my cats were pefect! I miss my girl kitty terribly. Both were "fixed" if that makes a difference.

 

I got the cats when they were 2 years old, so my male cat is now almost 14 and still not having accidents!

 

ETA: I forgot about when Sissy had a UTI. She did go on dh's backpack once when she had a UTI, but that cleared with anti-biotics and we kept her in the bathroom with her own litter box until it did. OOPS - sorry to lie by omission there.

Edited by Tree House Academy
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except for medical reasons my male cats do not ever urinate outside of their boxes. the boys did develop urinary crystals and leaked but we noticed it very quickly so there was no cleaning issue or long term health issues for them.

 

my female cat does not urinate outside of her box either and has never had a medical reason for it ...yet!

 

My cats do not have any behavioral issues with urinating outside of their litterboxes either.

 

They are indoor only and the female is front declawed but the boys are not. We just clip their nails monthly and have many scratching post stands (that we made) around the house.

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I have male and female cats.

 

The female we've never had issue with. The male was good through several severe UTIs but when we got a dog he's steadily gone downhill with these issues. First it was defecating out of the box (we cleaned more, tried other litters, got another box, moved the boxes). Then urinating outside of the box. Now he vomits weekly.

 

It seems to be stressed induced. We've given him medication to relax him and it works for awhile.

 

We're looking for another, dog-free home for him.

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Every male cat I've ever had has peed in bad places. Every female has properly behaved herself.

 

HOWEVER, my mother had a female cat who would pee in all four corners of her room and make a poop in the middle of her bed should she ever dare go on vacation. Female cats are the queens of revenge. They also are quite sure they own you and not the other way around.

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We think one pees only in the little box. We think it's the other one that defies neat little boxes.

 

We think Pip is the "good" kitty and pees and poops in the litter box all the time. We think Merry is the strange kitty who mostly pees and poops in the litter box. We occasionally smell pee in the laundry room. But we never know how long it's been there. Then he sometimes poops in my bathroom. But I can trace the pooping back to when the litter box isn't clean. We tried to get down to one litter box. One kitty (we think Merry) was pooping in the my sink. Again, it could go back to unclean box. We went back to 2 boxes and haven't had a problem since.

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We HAD a male cat, who did not give us a problem for his first 4 years, but then we moved and he peed in a laundry basket of clean newborn baby clothes. Since then, he peed on any blanket or article of clothing left lying around. We dealt with it for 4 years (kept things picked up), but there were always occasions where someone left something out and he'd get it. So in the words of my 5 yr old, "We had another kitty [we have a female also], but he was bad and he had to die."

 

It was very hard on me, as I was very attached to him. I was surprised how easily the girls took it.

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Have had three male cats, none peed anywhere other than their box. The first was a barn cat who didn't know a litter box from a food bowl when I first got him. He never made a mistake - ever. The second was a little guy who also never made a mistake. My current male never misses either.

 

My females - 4 in total over the years - were also very good about the box until they got older. Once they got older (over 15 years old) they started "forgetting" where the box was. That was a hard time. My current female is less particular about her aim, but does at least attempt to get it in the box. We have a covered box because of her.

 

I would get another male cat in a heartbeat. My guys have all been sweethearts.

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I have three female cats - NO issues At All. I had one male cat. He was fine until the end, and then he had issues with pee and poop in the beds. I had NO idea he was sick until he died unexpectedly. I didn't know new peeing/pooping issues were symptoms of illness in cats. :sad: I thought he was jealous of the new cat in the house.

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My male cats have never peed where they're not supposed to. Both are neutered and are indoor cats. My females have occasionally peed in the bathtub, which isn't as gross as peeing on carpet/clothes/furniture. At least that's easy to clean.

 

I also think male cats do better with kids. IME, the males have tolerated kids and rougher play than my females have. My female cats tend to be rather princessy.

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I selected the Male cat Pees all over all my stuff because it was the closest option. He doesn't pee everywhere, all over ALL my stuff. But, he does pee enough in particular places that it's maddening.

 

Cat does pee in his litter box. He also pees on my husbands office door, which is about three feet away from the litter box. He also gets in a battle with any towel left on the bathroom floor. He stalks it, jumps on it, rips it up, and then pees in it. It's a domination thing, I think. He used to do this with throw rugs, until I got rid of the throw rugs.

 

I no longer have any throw rugs, and I have to patrol the bathroom regularly to make sure towels are hung up. My dh is fit to be tied about his office door, but we haven't found a solution to that problem yet. I'm guessing the cat is claiming the whole utility room as his territory, since his box is in there. Too bad dh has to walk through there to get to his office.

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Neither of my (neutered) male cats has ever peed where he wasn't supposed to, unless inadvertently locked in a room without a litter box.

 

In the past, I had one female cat who did have accidents, but then we discovered she was in kidney failure, so we forgave her.

 

We had a male cat with a similar story. We did have a cat once that marked the house a couple times. It was a spayed female that we picked up as a stray. We already had 2 other cats at the time--one female, one male, both fixed. Our current cat is a neutered male and he prefers to go outside but has no problems with the litter box.

 

Cinder

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We have one male and one female who are half siblings and are around 13 years old now. I had them both fixed as early as the vet suggested. They have both shared a littler box the entire time. They never had any issues until just recently. There are times when one decides the box is not quite clean enough and pees right in front of it. I still don't know which one does it but it has not happened in a while so maybe we are past that now.

 

With these two cats, the female is more of a one person cat (my cat). She follows me around a lot and has very little tolerance for our sons, although she is very very sweet with me, and also my husband, but will pick me over him most of the time. To be fair though, the cats were with me long before the children and they (the cats) have put up with a lot over the past few years.:tongue_smilie: Anyway, the male cat is a sweet heart to everyone and has never met a person he doesn't like. He has never scratched anyone and was so sweet with the boys when they were little. He would let them crawl all over him and one of the boys would such his thumb while holding the cats tail.

 

I have had cats all my life and never had bathroom issues. These two cats are both bengal cats and they both have amazing personalities. I think the male must be part dog.:001_smile:

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My first attempt at a poll on this site, I believe...

 

We're surprising the kids with a kitten for Christmas (they'll find out about it on christmas, and we'll get one from a shelter or rescue after Christmas). Either coincidentally or because someone is trying to tell me something, lately I keep hearing stories about terrible cats who pee all over the house. I do not want a cat who pees all over my house. The cats in these stories tend to be male. I've had 3 cats as an adult, 2 female and one male. None of them peed all over my stuff (well, my male cat did for a little while, but not until he was dying of liver disease, so I forgive him). But I thought a slightly bigger sample size might be helpful. So...should I steer the kids away from a male cat? Thoughts, anecdotes, etc?

 

ETA: you should be able to pick more than one option if you have multiple cats.

If you have a male that is not fixed and other animals, then spraying will be a HUGE issue. It isn't always an issue though, it seems to depend on the cat.

 

The urine you're talking about (I think) is the spray. Cat pee isn't anywhere near as offensive (and until they get old it's not as much an issue) as spraying territory.

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Go for a calico cat. I've never met one that wasn't just as sweet as can be. By definition, though, you're probably going to have to have a female to get a calico.

 

We've always had female cats without any particular issues, though my experience with solid white female cats is very negative.

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I've had a multiple cat household for 20 years. I've always had neutered males and spayed females. In all the years of having 2-8 cats in the house at a time, I've never had a problem with urinating or defecating outside of the box....until this year. For the first time, I had a neutered male cat develop cystitis. He is now urinating on the cement in the basement, right next to litter box.

 

I didn't vote in the poll, because it really hasn't matched my experience.

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I have two young females that pee in their box. I have a couple of males that go outside to pee. I have a barn cat that will sneak in the house to use the litter box. I have a 15 yr old male that pees wherever the hell he wants. Including my dd's foot when she didn't open the door quickly enough for him.

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Go for a calico cat. I've never met one that wasn't just as sweet as can be. By definition, though, you're probably going to have to have a female to get a calico.

 

We've always had female cats without any particular issues, though my experience with solid white female cats is very negative.

 

:lol: I used to work for a cat exclusive veterinary practice (how do you think I ended up being a cat lady at 20 years old and in college!) and we used to absolutely dread when calico cats and tortoiseshell cats came in. They were *notoriously* bad tempered!

 

I love their spunk, but they tended to want to rip vet tech eyeballs out :001_smile:.

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We have two males and one female.

 

One of the males has phases where he poops in the downstairs hallway. Used to be the library floor, but I blocked that off. The litterbox is at the top of the stairs leading to said hallway; he has to pass it to go down and poop there on purpose. I have no idea. :glare:

 

Someone else, I'm not quite sure which but I suspect the female, pees on certain things. I have learned I cannot leave anything papery or plasticy on the floor or she'll think it's a new litter box. :glare:

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Our best, most loving cat ever was a male cat. I wouldn't have traded him for anything. However, if you left anything out that looked like a litter box, he would go in it -- empty laundry basket, toolbox, etc. We just learned to be very careful about leaving things out.

 

We had another very loving male cat who got mad whenever my husband yelled at him and only peed on my husband's clothes and shoes (never mine).

 

We also have a female who never pees on anything, but she is very self-centered, doesn't care about us at all, and is also very destructive with her clawing.

 

These were all neutered. HTH.

 

Suzanne

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:lol: I used to work for a cat exclusive veterinary practice (how do you think I ended up being a cat lady at 20 years old and in college!) and we used to absolutely dread when calico cats and tortoiseshell cats came in. They were *notoriously* bad tempered!

 

LOL! We had one that would literally let us carry her around like a baby, and she followed us around like a puppy the rest of the time. She also could catch birds twice her size - but yes, spunk. Her name was Fire. ;)

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Just got my kitty at 2 months, already neutered. They promised he wouldn't spray, which is what you're thinking about... probably. My female is SOOOOO great, that when she did get locked in the house, without access to the litter box... she only went in the restroom.. on the towel... for a whole week!! She is a keeper!! Course, a couple times she got locked in my bedroom... and chose my duvet!! <eek>

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I have a very old male cat who has multiple chronic health issues, including kidney failure. When his kidney failure started, one of the first signs was that he peed a lot, and couldn't always make it to the box... or if he was closed into a room without a litterbox, he couldn't hold his urine.

 

His kidney failure is under control, but he ended up with another health issue which caused him to pee a lot. A couple of times, he went on the floor behind the toilet, and now he has developed the habit of peeing behind the toilet in the middle of the night. At least it's on a vinyl floor... I keep thinking he won't live much longer, but he has suprised me with his longevity and the accompanying vet bills for a while now.

 

He has never backed up and sprayed anything.

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Let me start by saying that I hate cats.

 

I currently have 3 cats, 1 former cat, and I had 2 more as a child. Strike that--I had 2 cats as a child, and currently I'm surrounded by 3 more cats who belong to other family members but I do NOT EVER have to do litter duty because I refuse to have my own cat.

 

2 males, 4 females.

 

1st male: We rescued him along with all his litter mates and his mom, he was the only one we kept. Perhaps plenty of time with mom made the difference, but this female street cat litter trained all her kittens for us. He was a good litter user. Until he hit puberty, when he sprayed everything in sight repeatedly for 3 weeks until my mom FINALLY took him to get him fixed. Problem solved immediately and permanently.

 

1st female: Older male cat (above paragraph) litter trained her for us, she never ever ever wee-weed on anything she wasn't supposed to.

 

2nd female: dd's cat. still with us. Never went where she wasn't supposed to except a couple "oops" moments as a small kitten. Has never been a vengeful pee-er.

 

3rd female: my last cat. Sprayed like a male when she hit 5 mos. Later lost her mind and went completely bonkers and eventually had to be given away to be an only cat because she was *constantly* attacking 4th female (below) and endangered young kids in process.

 

2nd male: ds's cat. Peed all over the house, once peed all over a huge bin full of baby pictures I left open overnight (I was sorting them) and ruined most of them. Also, has habitually pooped behind our entertainment center for YEARS and we could never figure out why. Drove us nuts. Really didn't stop until we moved to a new home. One of my worst days ever was when a neighbor showed up at my door right after cat has diarrhea behind entertainment center while water is FLOODING into my kitchen from upstairs neighbor.... all at once. NOW he doesn't poop outside litter pan, but he is LUCKY to even be alive right now after these and many other incidents.

 

4th female: Has had HUGE problems with peeing in various places, but I suspect it is not because she is vengeful, but rather because she is a total idiot. But I think most cats are idiots. But this one is especially dumb. Really. TWICE she got stuck behind a couple tall bookshelves in a corner. The same bookshelves. Idiot.

 

Cat pee stinks like nothing else on earth, and the kids will NOT clean it up to your satisfaction, and it cannot wait until your dh gets home if it happens while he's at work. If you get a cat, remember that there is a chance that it will pee on your stuff, and YOU will have to clean it up. Also, if it turns out to be a habitual thing, eventually it WILL pee on something dear to you and ruin it forever. But I say this as someone who readily admits to hating cats. If I had my druthers there would be NO CATS in my house EVER again.

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I agree just out of personal preference. But I can say that male cats are more prone to urinary disease, which is the usual reason for peeing everywhere. If you feed a better quality cat food, and clean the litterbox everyday, your cat own't pee everywhere.

 

If you let the box get dirty don't be suprised if the kitty finds a more attractive place to go.

 

We have 2 boxes for 3 cats and each box gets sifted twice a day and changed weekly because I hate cats almost as much as I hate cat stink. They are fed very expensive high-quality food. Two of them are fine now, but one of them still pees on my stuff sometimes. No one set of solutions will "always" work to make all cats stop peeing on stuff.

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Well, it looks like the good news is that most cats do not pee all over the house. The bad news is that one can't increase the odds of having a good kitty by sticking with just males or just females. Probably what will happen is the new kitten, boy or girl, will be an angel, and my old female cat will be so angry that we got a kitten that SHE will start peeing on everything.

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We have 2 female dogs, and dh, the cat hater, brought home a 2 year old male cat a few weeks ago. This cat has our two dogs terrorised. He is neutered and was well loved, it seemed, before we got him (although he was technicalyl abandoned).

He does not pee anywhere except in his tray. Now that he can go outside, he is also toileting outside. So far, so good.

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