Hi all. I'm Jadelyn, 26 years old, living in a (surprisingly large) basement studio apartment with my fiance - and, now, our cat. We adopted Mara, a 1-year-old calico tabby girl, in December, and while we initially all seemed to adjust okay and were fast on our way to becoming a family, well...we've been having trouble for the past two months.
It started with her peeing on the bathroom, then kitchen rugs occasionally. After about a month and some failed attempts at behavioral correction, we took her to the vet. Turns out she had a UTI. So we were given antibiotics to give her - at which point she, I think in revenge for being medicated which she hated, also started pooping on the rugs. >.< She also had started peeing on our bed by that point. So we started wrapping the bed in plastic every day (several shower curtain liners duct-taped together), which I HATE LOATHE AND DESPISE because she spends all day scratching on it, biting it, rustling around on it, and the sound is driving me out of my mind. I work from home, and I cannot concentrate when I'm having to yell at her to get off the d*** bed every two minutes. (Also it sucks because my usual downtime when I take breaks from my work is to go flop on the bed with a book for ten minutes, and the couch is just not cutting it as a replacement relaxation station.)
Well, she finally started using the litterbox more, and this past Friday we went out and picked up Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract litter, to see if we could encourage that. And it seemed to work! She peed on a rug one more time on Sunday morning, but I think it was just a matter of her still smelling the old spots despite our cleaning, so I gathered up the rugs and put them in a trash bag in our tiny little closet (I'm thinking we'll just get rid of them at this point, I'm not interested in trying to salvage them), and she seemed to be okay, using only the litterbox all day Sunday and Monday. So, thinking everything was all right, yesterday I left the plastic wrap off the bed - especially since we'd finished giving her the last dose of Clavamox Monday night, so the UTI should be gone. And that was fine! No inappropriate elimination yesterday. And we'd been giving her praise and treats for using the litterbox, figuring behavioral reinforcement couldn't hurt, right?
Only then this morning, she went and peed on the (unwrapped) bed again. I thought maybe I hadn't gotten the scent completely out last time I'd washed it after her doing that, so I (following the directions that came with the Dr. Elsey litter) washed it in the washing machine with a cup of vinegar, followed by washing it with regular detergent. I hadn't put it back on the bed yet, so the bed was just sheets over the mattress...and it's a good thing, because this evening, she peed on the bed AGAIN! Not while we were out to dinner, no - she waited until we had gotten home, and after we fed her her dinner, she went and did it.
It was a trail and splatters, according to my fiance (I was in the bathroom myself at the time, so he did the cleanup and I didn't see it), as opposed to a puddle. So we think maybe it's gone from being a medical thing to being a marking thing. Only this is NOT good news, to me! Medical stuff, I can deal with. *Was* dealing with. And I had hoped that, as the UTI cleared up, her behavior would return to normal. Now, I have no idea what to do. And I feel like I'm going to be doomed to spending the rest of my life cleaning up cat pee from my bed. (Dramatic, I know, but I was having an awesome evening and this has really ruined it for me.)
So, uh, yeah. I am hoping to find advice or help or something, anything to keep me from losing my mind and running away from home. Halp?
