Anonymous wrote:My cousin's cat did this and they ended up getting the cat a harness that had a light leash that attached on a wheel to a long clothesline across the yard. The cat started spending daytime outside while they were at work, and he seemed much happier: he stopped peeing outside of his box at night when they brought him in. He was very elderly and not interested in climbing trees, and just seemed happy to walk around and nibble grass, and then sleep in the sunshine or in his "cat house" outside. He would go to the door and beg to be put outside on his run in the mornings. Maybe you could do something like this, or even pay someone to put up an enclosed space in the yard?

Anonymous wrote:OP again - only other option is to keep a plastic drop cloth over the sofa, and just change it if he pees on it (and hope his behavior calms down in time now that we're home from vacation). Would that be totally nuts? I figure he has a year or two max left to live.

No more pets for us after this, sadly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OMG! There are organizations that take cats like this. I'm so sad.

Name one. Post a list with links.

What hick town is this being beamed down from exactly? No vet in the actual Washington DC area would euthanize a 3 year old cat for peeing.
Help us pick out an organization for you by saying where you're actually from.

Actually, or wonderful very did it, after watching us struggle for nearly 2 years wirh this. We adopted him from a shelter at 18 months of age, he'd been given up because he peed around. I thought, with all kinds of hubris, that as a very experienced cat owner, I could solve this, and he'd been in and out of foster homes because he kept getting sick at the shelter and had not peed at the foster homes. (he was listed as hard to adopt because he'd been they're for 6 months and he peed)

Within 1 week he'd peed the first time. And so it went. He was a very anxious cat except when he wasn't. Tried feliway, prozac, a cocktail of 2 drugs, added so many litter boxes we liked like a factory, put litter boxes on all floors of the house, saw a cat behaviorist (biggest waste of $400 of my life) and still it continued. Could have returned him to shelter, where he's have lived his life at the shelter, getting sick constantly. That's no way to live. He's in a better place now, if you believe in that. Or, he's out of stress now. Believe me, I agonized over this decision. But we had PTSD from his weekly and daily peeing.
And you can't replace your sofa monthly, nor mattresses. And he didn't just squirt a few drops, he peed a gallon every time.

I now know I'm not invincible, despite the 20 to 30 cats I've had on my lifetime.

One idea:, we had a very elderly cat who couldn't get into the litter box uie to arthritis and we put a pee pad down. You know like they train puppies with? It was great, she could walk on it, pee, and keep going. She was no longer sitting to pee at this point. I've also had another elderly cat with high blood pressure and hyper thyroid whom we medicated for 2 or more years, who in her last 18 months lived in a special bedroom with a heated bed, etc. She had a heart specialist who saw her every 6 months for 2 years. She died at 19 years old. Believe me, I know cats, and I've bent over for them, but this guy wasn't rehome-able and we couldn't get him to stop peeing everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:My cousin's cat did this and they ended up getting the cat a harness that had a light leash that attached on a wheel to a long clothesline across the yard. The cat started spending daytime outside while they were at work, and he seemed much happier: he stopped peeing outside of his box at night when they brought him in. He was very elderly and not interested in climbing trees, and just seemed happy to walk around and nibble grass, and then sleep in the sunshine or in his "cat house" outside. He would go to the door and beg to be put outside on his run in the mornings. Maybe you could do something like this, or even pay someone to put up an enclosed space in the yard?

Anonymous wrote:My cat is 15 years old and we've been battling his peeing outside the litter box for about 5 years. We've had long stretches of success, but every time we go on vacation he regresses and starts doing it again. I love my cat and am a person who believes in caring for him as best as I can until the end of his life - putting him down has never been an option, and never will be. But we're kind of at the end of our rope.

We started off closing all the bedroom doors so he couldn't pee in the beds, and that worked well for a long time. Then, after vacations he would pee on certain rugs, until I removed them one by one. As of last summer, we have zero rugs down - not even an entry mat. But that was okay, I was willing to deal with that - he's elderly and it was fine. There were no more pee incidents for a good long time and all was well.

Well, we just got back from a week away (cat sitter came once a day) and he started peeing in our den sofa. I actually put a plastic drop cloth on it and he peed and pooped on that last night. My DH has hit his limit - he is not willing to live with pee and poop on our sofa and I agree. He is demanding that our cat live in the laundry room where his litter boxes are, or downstairs in the basement. But it breaks my heart - my cat is 15 and very attached to me and the kids - and gets very lonely (which is why the peeing outside of the litter box started in the first place). He will be miserable.

He loves to sit by our sliding door in a sun beam and look outside - that's what he does all day. Our basement is unfinished and dark, with no windows, though it's larger than our laundry room. But the laundry room does have a small window and I could set up a perch for him to climb up so he could look outside. But either way, he'd be unhappy.

I realize it's the only way, but I'm feeling so guilty and so bad for my sweet cat - my kids and I love him despite his a-hole behavior and he's been our companion for 15 years. He's had health issues and the vet calls him a "miracle cat" because he just keeps on going. I guess I'm worried if we separate him he'll go downhill. But we've tried cat attract litter, keeping it very clean, giving him 4 boxes to choose from.

Which room would you choose if you were me - smaller, unfinished laundry room with a small window or larger unfinished basement with no window?
Any ideas for what I can do to make the space cozy for him? Should I feel bad about this? I'm just so bummed out.

Anonymous wrote:OP again - only other option is to keep a plastic drop cloth over the sofa, and just change it if he pees on it (and hope his behavior calms down in time now that we're home from vacation). Would that be totally nuts? I figure he has a year or two max left to live.

No more pets for us after this, sadly.

Anonymous wrote:I work in animal welfare, and I think it would be kinder to euthanize your cat than to leave him locked in a laundry room.

If you have truly exhausted every option - speaking with your vet, and perhaps also a behaviorist - and your family is unwilling to live with the pee and poop in the wrong places, then I don't see much other choice. You can try to rehome your cat, to a family who understands that he has special needs now. But that isn't easy to do.

I'm sorry you're going through this. Frankly, your husband is an asshole. But you probably already know that.