I am at my wit's end and hope you can help! Background: We have a kitten who is 18 weeks old. We adopted her from the shelter, just as we have with any animal we've had. We've had her for 11 weeks now. We also have a 2.5 year old male cat and a 6 year old Golden Retriever. The male cat is the Alpha cat and the Golden Retriever is very good with both cats. The cats are good with the Golden also, so she's not the issue. The cats get along well and I don't see any intimidation by the older male cat towards the kitten. The cats are strictly indoor cats.

The problem is this: The kitten has been peeing in different places in the house. On a couple of occasions, she also pooped, but that was just a couple of times weeks ago and hasn't happened since. I've never had to deal with this before and I'm at a loss as to what to do anymore. She does use the litter box, but at times, also chooses to go elsewhere. I tried "retraining" her by putting her in the bathroom with the litter box and her food for a few days and she uses the litter box like a champ. Once I let her out and she has the run of the house, she regresses. I took her to the vet and they said that she had a bit of blood and some white blood cells in her urine and put her on antibiotics for 10 days. She's been off them for a few weeks now. At first, we thought that she was cured and wasn't doing it anymore, but we've since realized that she has. We used a black light and have found that there are some areas that look as if they are spray, like she's marking territory and others that are just very blatantly just urination spots. She's pretty much done this since we got her. At first we thought it was just an accident here or there, but now we know that it's something more. At times, she will even do this in front of us.

I've tried everything I can think of from retraining her to taking her to the vet to taking her to the litter box every time she even looks like she needs to go. Do you have any advice?? We have two litter boxes and they are kept very clean.
I've read that sometimes they will do this until they are fixed, but I don't know if that will solve the problem or not. Our vet said that they will spay her at 5 months, which will be in a couple of weeks. We plan to do that ASAP in hopes that it may change things.

I've done everything else I've read about. It's obviously a behavioral issue, but how in the world do you change it? I simply can't have a cat that pees in my house, but I committed to her when I adopted her and want to give her every opportunity to get straightened out. I love her, but not enough to keep her forever if she can't get the litter box thing under control.

Also, we've used Urine Gone on the pee spots, but there are times that I can still smell something. Any suggestions on anything else to use that really works?

Thank you SO much for any advice you can offer!

—Tracy

Dear Tracy -

I certainly understand your frustration and can imagine how maddeningly it is when your kitten is not using the litter box. However, the essential piece of information you seem to be overlooking is that your kitty has urinary tract problems which are probably causing her irritation and pain and urgency. That infection is why the vet put her on antibiotics. However, was she re-tested afterward to see whether it was cleared up? I would bet not from what you report - and I would also bet that she still has a physical problem causing her to pee inappropriately.
When she is in a small space she can get right into the box, but if the box isn't right there when the urge strikes her, she is going where she is.That would explain why she has relieved herself right in front of you.

Besides re-testing her urine for signs of problems, I would guess that you are feeding this kitten dry food, which is a contributor to any cat's health problems both short-term and long-term. I urge you to change her diet immediately (if not sooner!) to a canned food or better yet, a raw diet that can be shipped to you frozen and thawed in the refrigerator. Please take a moment to read some of the Q&A's that I have taken the time to post on www.CatChatRadio.com so you can understand the perfect logic behind the advice to "think outside the bag" and feed only meat to an animal who is an "obligate carnivore," meaning that meat is all she should be eating instead of the the highly processed corn products in bagged kibble.

In answer to your request for a great product to remove ALL urine odor, please get in touch with the folks at X-O, which is a product linked on the Cat Chat website and it is not only organic and totally safe but truly effective at odor removal.

I hope that maybe by ow your kitten has been spayed and that will help settle things down a little, too.

Best of luck to you,
Tracie

P.S. My new book "The Cat Bible" comes out soon and you can pre-order it at Amazon.com. It has answers to problems like this and so many others.