Kitty problem, please help! (carpet, siamese, blankets, litter)

[jbirrd10]

Hello,

Here is my situation, I really need some advice..
I have 7 cats, they are all adopted and for years they've ALL gotten along just fine. We rescued an adult siamese cat (Karma) about 6 months ago whom is super shy and very afraid of other animals and people. It took him about 4 months to come out of hiding, now hes great, ACCEPT, one of my kitties (Moon) I've had for about 3 years hates him. They fight and attack eachother, mostly at night when we're not awake. We keep finding urine on the new couch, we do our best to get it out, we've had the carpets and couches steam cleaned recently and they just continue urinating and fighting. We have three litter boxes, two are HUGE, its never been an issue, I clean them around 3x per day, dump them weekly, scrub and bleach them and put new litter in them. Originally we had got Karma his own litter box which is upstairs in a closet because we had thought the other cats weren't allowing him to go downstairs to use the big ones, now we find cat spray on Karma's box in the closet. We think its Moon but so hard to tell when you never witness it happen. We're thinking about locking Moon in a crate at night while we're asleep to prevent this, since we DO know he attacks Karma at night.

I'm not sure if we need to bring Karma back to the Humane Society or not. I don't want to, it took him so long to be comfortable here and I don't want to put him through that again. If you have any advice, please help. My email is [email]jesmills10@gmail.com[/email], I've never really done this blog stuff, looking forward to hearing some options. Thank you for reading! Have a Happy New Year!

[601halfdozen0theother]

For SEVEN cats you need SEVEN litterboxes. It really does work best to have one litterbox per cat. That doesn't mean that each cat will use a seperate litter box, just that each has more choice.

Spraying also happens when one cat is establishing dominance. Can you give your dominant cat other ways to display dominance? Feed him first, let only him sleep on your bed, etc.?

These problems exist because most people tend to keep cats inside now, which limits the roaming space natural to cats in the wild. Can you build an outdoor cat enclosure to give your group more room?

Just my opinion based on what has worked for me!

[GotBackHome]

fighting cats is annoying, stressful & heartbreaking. I'm going through it for the last 6 months with my 5. If you're saying the 'huge' litterboxes are twice the size of a regular box, then I guess you could be counting 5 litterboxes for 7 cats. hmm, possibly not enough, even if you are keeping them extremely clean. It's possible that someone is lying in wait and not allowing the other sufficient access to a litterbox, so they urinate where they can - or where they are when they have to. but basically 'inappropriate peeing' is a cat's way of saying "I'm unhappy or sick". the problem is how to fix it! assuming that you've had them both checked for infections or blockages, it's all behavioral.

some people have done well with the feliway plugins, or rescue remedy drops in the water, I tried clomacalm pills (which personally I don't think did a thing). mostly, I'm seeing time make a difference. Like I said, it's been oh a good 6 months and Hannah still spits and hisses and has fits if Canute gets too close. But lately Canute has been behaving amazingly well and not attacking her. She just needs to calm down and realize that he's not.

Do they have sufficient places to be separate? Do they have separate dishes and eat in separate places (Canute eats in line with all the other boys, Hannah eats on a desk behind a large potted plant)? In the meantime, you might want to keep a rubber backed mattress pad draped over the couch to protect it! ours were peeing mostly on our bed so we got the rubber pads - blankets and sheets are washable but the mattress? only so much I'm willing to believe in the Nature's Miracle for something I can't put in the washer. You did put an enzymatic cleaner like Nature's Miracle in the detergent when you were steam cleaning the couch? it's the only way to get the smell out (to their nose. how they can smell 1 drop of urine, yet they can't find a piece of chicken breast that's 2" from their nose, I don't know!).

Keep us posted, many of us have been there. You don't necessarily have to send Moon back to the shelter if you're willing to tough it out and deal for months. and if they can handle it.

[ParallelJJCat]

I know it's worked in the past, but that's just not enough litterboxes. The common suggestion is one box per cat plus one, which would be eight boxes. Probably not doable, but I would add at least a few more. The size isn't the important part...the important part is making sure nobody gets trapped in a box or has to wait.

I would get a Feliway plug-in. It realeases a calming scent that can help with the aggression. I would also look into adding more space. Vertical space is more important to cats than horizontal. That means cat trees or shelves- anywhere they can be up high.

How did you introduce the cats? You might need to start over if it happened too quickly. While some cats are just fine that way, a nervous cat and a dominant one may need more time.

You might also try to give Moon as much attention as possible. Wear him out with toys and give him things to do. When he does go after Karma, you need to distract him. Usually I would suggest a penny can to make noise, but that would probably scare Karma and set him back. Instead I would use a water pistol and try to only hit Moon! And yes, separating them at night is probably wise.

These things can take a while to work out, and you might have to start over. But usually it is possible- it just isn't always easy!