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Old September 13th, 2009, 11:04 AM
Iberian Iberian is offline
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Need urgent help, kitten problems

Hello.
I have recently adopted a kitten from the SPCA and have a few questions.
When we got him he was extremley underwight, his eyes were bulging and you could feel his ribs, but he had a real survivor personality, he was still spunky and lively and very happy. But he is also very dominant (but he will be neutered end of October)

Whenever he has finished eating, he scrapes his paw/paws around the food bowl and taps it, like when he is covering up his buisness in the litter tray. Does anyone know why he might do this? Could it be connected to the fact that he was malnourished when we got him?

He is house-trained, except for beds but I have heard of other cats who only choose to pee on beds too, though they are also house-trained. How can I stop this/is there a reason for it?

Thankyou
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Old September 13th, 2009, 11:25 AM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Attempting to "bury" his food is normal and goes back to his ancestor's trying to hide meals they couldn't finish from scavengers.

The peeing on the bed could be a few things. How many litter boxes do you have and how accessible are they for him? How old is your kitty? How often does he do it?
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Old September 13th, 2009, 10:37 PM
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Can you isolate him to a room with a litter box(where there are no beds) at times he is unsupervised? He needs to be retrained to used the box, and hopefully he will forget about the bed after he's using the litter box for a month.
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Old September 13th, 2009, 11:28 PM
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Magicwildwolf69 Magicwildwolf69 is offline
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some cats do try to bury their food. i have a five year old who does it all the time. i just let her be till she tips the food bowl upside down then i shoo her away. lol its very funny though.

as for the peeing on beds. the others asked some good questions. the rule is usually one litter box per cat plus one more. do you have any other cats? how long have you had him?
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Old September 14th, 2009, 08:42 AM
Iberian Iberian is offline
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Thankyou for the food-bowl-thing, I think it definatley explains it! But...
I have just the one kitten, and he is approximatley 4.1/2 months old. The thing is, he has almost constant access to his litter box, and he uses it and goes outside to do his buisness frequently. He is absolutley perfectly litter-trained everywhere in the house, except when he see's a bed. It is like he runs off to a room just to find a bed to pee on. Yet he doesn't 'go' in the wrong place on anything except beds. So is this just an issue of training him, or is it that beds have a special attraction, or is it a general cat thing?

Thankyou!
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Old September 14th, 2009, 12:04 PM
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Keep bedroom doors closed.

It's a natural thing for cats to "cover their food"; some cats do it some don't. Their bigger relatives, cougars and lynx will do the same thing, to come back to eat later.

As for the fixation of peeing only on a bed.... it's possible that's where the owner's scent is most prominent. Why some cats do this, it's hard to say, other than most urine marking is a form of territory marking which most male cats like to do, especially ones of a dominant nature. Since he's still a young kitten, it's absolutely necessary to nip this behaviour in the bud. Do not allow him in any bedrooms...that means always keep your bedroom door closed. Do you allow him to sleep in the bed with you? That may also contribute to his marking your bed. He is still young so do try to train him out of this habit by being consistent with keeping bedroom doors closed at all times. Hopefully having him neutered next month may change his behaviour, but still keep bedrooms off limit to him for several months at least. Let us know how things work out with your boy.
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Old September 14th, 2009, 04:03 PM
Iberian Iberian is offline
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Smile Thankyou guys so much

Hopefully neutering will help, definatley, and the bedroom doors are always shut. He always sleeps in his bed (thankfully he is very good about that) and is rarely allowed into the 'bedrooms' part of the house. We did have another cat, but she has gone to a new home, but I don't think that could have contributed to the litter box problem because she never used it, she always went outside. The peeing on bed problems actually started because he had a urinary tract infection, and he kind of 'accidentally' went on my bed, that was when I noticed the blood. But after it was all cleared up and okay, I thought I could trust him on my bed again. But he went anyway, and after that he just went mad on beds. I didn't know if it was an association thing, but never the less he discovered he liked beds!
I think he will just have to be mainly confined to four places, kitchen, living room, conservatory and outside, and bedroms are basically off limits for life. Is that a good idea, because I really don't know how to train him out of it, I don't want to risk another incredibly smelly duvet!!!!!
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Old September 14th, 2009, 04:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iberian View Post
The peeing on bed problems actually started because he had a urinary tract infection, and he kind of 'accidentally' went on my bed, that was when I noticed the blood.
This could actually still be a factor. I'm willing to bet that it wasn't really a urinary tract infection, but rather urinary tract inflammation. A true infection is quite rare in a cat under 10 yrs old, inflammation is not. Inflammation is often caused by crystals in the urine, which irritate the bladder and urinary tract. The best way to deal with the crystals (which may still be present), and something that could prevent your cat from getting a life-threatening blockage, would be to feed a high quality wet food, along the lines of Wellness, Innova Evo 95%, Nature's Variety Instinct, By Nature Organics, etc..... While it's a good idea for ALL cats to eat wet food instead of dry, that goes doubly so for male cats. What are you feeding him now?

Here is some info for you to check out on feline nutrition: http://www.catinfo.org/

One of the main reasons a cat with UTI will pee outside of the litter box is because they associate the box with pain. A bed is a nice soft absorbant spot that is also comforting because it smells predominantly like you. It might be a good idea to get another litter box, maybe even a different type of litter (what kind do you currently use?) and put it another location where there aren't the negative associations like there may be with the old box.

Sorry, this is a little off topic, but how come your previous cat no longer lives with you?
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Old September 16th, 2009, 07:29 AM
Iberian Iberian is offline
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Thumbs up Thanks for the websites!

The thing is, the vet suspected an inflamation, crystals ect, but he said it actually wasn't after a test of a sample (he said I was very patient to actually get a sample at all!) He asked was the kitten stressed at all, and he didn't act at all stressed or seem it except in the mornings after he had spent a whole night with our other cat.
Now, the moment we brought him home he seemed to adore playing, biting, jumping on and annoying our other cat, in a kittenish way, not aggressivley. But she hated it, and she always ran away from him, so we couldn't see how he could be stressed by her running away from him yet one morning we found blood on the floor, and she had bitten him on the shoulder (he now has a little white patch of hair around a bare patch of skin on his black fur.) She had bitten him, and we were appauled when we constantly started witnessing her biting him very hard on he head. But seperation was very difficult because he always wanted to have a go at her and vice versa.
She used to be a farm cat, and she had started scratching up our furniture and jumping on tables and eating our food when we weren't looking, which she ever used to do when we first got her, so we gave her away to the stables where I used to ride at, and there was an immediate reaction, she is now very very happy, hunting loads, seems to behave impecably, love all the horse andother cat company ect, and Jack (kitten) is happy again and no more blood in his urine.
But a bad association with the litter tray sounds plausable, yet he stll uses it all the time. Maybe he associates beds with a good place to go, even though he doesn't associate the litter box with a bad place to go. Maybe he just thinks bed are better. So the qustion remains, do I simply prevent him all his life or can he be trained out of bed peeing?

Last edited by Iberian; September 16th, 2009 at 07:31 AM. Reason: a few spelling mistakes!!!
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Old September 16th, 2009, 11:57 AM
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sugarcatmom sugarcatmom is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iberian View Post
Now, the moment we brought him home he seemed to adore playing, biting, jumping on and annoying our other cat, in a kittenish way, not aggressivley. But she hated it, and she always ran away from him,
Not that it matters now, but for future reference, it's better to do a gradual introduction over a period of several days or even weeks. The new guy should have been kept in a separate room while your resident cat got used to his smell. That would have been safer for him and less stressful for the poor girl, and you likely could have kept both cats. Here are some links on that:

http://www.wvcats.com/integrating_kittens_with_cats.htm
http://www.catsinternational.org/art...roduction.html

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iberian View Post
So the qustion remains, do I simply prevent him all his life or can he be trained out of bed peeing?
It's possible that if you can keep him out of the bedroom for a while to break him of the habit, you might one day be able to let him back in and he'll be fine.

And please, if you aren't feeding him wet food, I urge you to start. Male cats and kibble can be a deadly combo.
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