
This is the current problem as described by Donna Fraser on Facebook (I have shortened her post a little to make it more manageable):
So I recently took in this handsome boy Charlie who was re-homed because I was told he sometimes urinates on the tile by the front door. He was re-homed last fall from an older woman who was moving, to a household with other cats [and] children…This person figured her busy household was the reason he was peeing outside of his litter box. So I agreed to take him in a month ago hoping that his issue was because he did not like such a busy household. I had his urine analysed and it turns out he has idiopathic cystitis….So I’ve been feeding him new food which is supposed to help. However a month later and he is still peeing by my front door. The weird thing is he does use the litter boxes downstairs. He urinates in them but once a day he will come upstairs and pee by the front door. Even when I put a litter box by the front door he will still sometimes pee on the tile….Any suggestions would be helpful. I really want to save this sweetie.
Some thoughts
I’d like try and help fix this feline problem. These are my thoughts. They may not work but I am sure they are on the right track.
Incidentally Charlie looks very like a male, blue pointed and mitted Ragdoll. I’d almost swear it so all the more reason to get this right. Anxiety over time in his previous home has made him anxious and stressed as Donna said. The stress has caused the idiopathic cystitis. This may have been exacerbated by feeding 100% dry cat food. Dry cat food can cause urinary tract problems as cats don’t compensate adequately by drinking more water.
The cause of the peeing by the door is twofold: nervousness and marking not by conventional spraying but by normal peeing. It is a habit that he has developed to feel calmer. There is an overlap here between marking and peeing in my view. Also the tiles by the front door have become an alternative toilet for Charlie so he reuses it in addition to the litter box.
The solution is probably threefold (1) big efforts to calm him down and to reassure him. This should include more than the usual amount of play which may distract his mind from this anxiety, (2) cleaning the tiles by the front door with a specialist enzyme cleaner which will remove all traces of the urine. This should break the habit of using the spot as a toilet and (3) feeding high quality wet food to which can be added a treat of fish (if he likes fish) with added water to make him ingest more water. This will help flush the urinary tract and prevent the cystitis recurring. There should be no dry cat food in his diet at all.
The objectives: totally cure the cystitis, get rid of anxiety and the habit of using the front door tiles as a toilet. If you can think of anything else please comment.