feral kitten urination problem

by DIANA BRIAND
(KITCHENER ONTARIO CANADA)

Hi we have a very odd situation, we have always rescued cats and the last two we had for 14 years and in the past year we had to put them both down and missed them terribly. So we saw an ad for kittens recently and went and fell in love with our girl, she was born to feral hope I spelt that right,parents, but at 4 weeks old the people in this office took them in as the mother dropped them off and they nursed them and took great care of about five kittens for a month and we took her at 8 weeks, she has used litter boxes for quite awhile and with us with no problems for about three weeks all of a sudden she is peeing in the reckroom beside the laundryroom where she has always been at night with no problem, now she stopped peeing there and is pooping! She started doing the peeing when we gentley took her off the curtain and when my husband put a pair of his jeans on the chair and put them up as she wanted to climb up them, we have lots of play time and toys and places for her to scratch, and when she pooped there was no reason as she was happy and playing with us, we never yell at her or scold her we take her off what she is on and as she is peeing we put her into the litter box and move her paws, we have been with her everday for a couple of weeks as we have been ill and she is great but in the past week

just started this.It is so aweful and we don't want to have to give her away but I am not well and hope we can change this habit soon. Is it because she came from feral parents? Thanks so so much.Diana



Answer by Kate
I don't think it is because she was born froma feral mother, although it is a shame that she was not allowed to reamin with ehr mother for at least 7 weeks as the mothers milk would have helped protect and stretghtne her immune system. Any way that is by the by at this stage.

her beahvior sounds to me like a scenting issue. using usrine and poop which is known as middening are signed that the cat is trying to mark her territory in a very definate way rather than not knowing how to use the litter tray. the cause of this can be difficult to pin down. Please read my page about middening here https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-poo.html

If i were you i would go through the retraining period with her of using the litter tray and confining her to one room (as described on the page about middening) for about a week with her litter tray see my page about this is here https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-litter-box.html

It is also very importnat that any residue of her scent from the urine and the poop is removbed otherwise they think it is still ok to go there. there sense of smell is much better than ours so i always use dry bicarbonate of soda on the area for about an hour then vaccum up this should remove any remaining scent.

hope my advice can help :)
kate

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