My cat is jealous!

Question
I currently own two cats - Madison (mother 10 yrs old) and Mick (son 9 years old). I was married for 5 1/2 years. We adopted Madison (the mother) when she was 1 year old from the Humane Society. She was always fond of me from the get-go and hardly paid any attention to my then wife. When we divorced I got my own place. She was the ideal cat. Friendly to all visitors, NEVER peeing outside her litter box, VERY intelligent and inquisitive and fully aware of her surroundings.

Now I am living with another woman (Gina) for approximately a year and a half now. After a month or two, she would go into the laundry room and piss on Gina's clothes pile, and not mine which is right next to her's. We let it go without dicipline. It happened again. Afterwards, she then eventually found Gina's couch in another room and pissed on that. Then later a box of Gina's art supplies next to a different couch. After that, she pissed on GIna's clothes in the laundry again. I picked her up, put her face in the pissed on clothes and locked her in a small closet with the soaked clothes for a couple of hours. After a couple weeks, she found us in the bedroom and pissed right between us and we had to throw away the matttress. I was FURIOUS. I locked her in the bathroom for a day and a half with the piss soaked bed comforter and yelled at her so angrily whe litteraly shit herself. After she got let out, not even a day and a half later she went into Gina's personal closet and pissed on some of her clothes in there. The whole house smells like cat piss now and I am fed up with it. Now she is in the garage permanantly until I resolve this problem and I HATE doing that!! I do love this cat but it seems as though she is big time jealous of my girlfriend. I don't feel like this will ever stop. I tried to make sure that Madison has always gotton attention. Madison will always lay around with us.  She is totally a people cat. This cat follows me into every room I go into constantly and it is obvious she is totally infatuated with me. She even won't share my attention with her son Mick and hisses at him aswell when he comes around me and as he may "take attention away from her".

Sorry for the length of this letter, but I need to figure this out because I love Madison however I cannot take a house full of cat piss anymore. She is jealous now in my opinion. Any suggestions????????????????

Answer
Hi
let me say first that your cat does not dislike your girlfriend at all. cats do not behave like this for revenge or being naughty or anything at all like that. That is where we humans get confused, we see this as bad behaviour and as a sign of anger or revenge against the person it is mostly happening too. Cats are not human and as such do not behave or react in the same way as humans may if they wanted revenge etc.

i just wanted to say that as you sound very angry and i can understand your frustration etc with this but anger is not the correct reaction. All anger will do is make you feel worse and your cat scared of you which will only make the problem worse.


Ok let tackle this problem. basically what has happened is someone else / new has come into your cats territory, with their new smells etc. this has worried and scared your cat and the urination is there way of trying to cover the other persons scent with their own so that the home smells like theirs again which in turn helps them to feel confident in their home. So the behaviour is a way for the cat to feel secure again in her home.

Two things need to happen here first your new girlfriend has to try and bond with the cat so that any fear or worry on your cats side is gone. please see my web page about bonding with a cat here
/new-cat.html

Next you will have to thoroughly thoroughly clean the house to make sure that not a trace of the cats urine is left. if there is the cat will smell it and think that it is ok to use that area again. please see my page about cleaning cat urine here  
/cat-urine-cleaner.html

next you will have to give your cat a period of time to become confident again in a smaller space and with their litter tray. The bathroom is ideal for this. Again I have written a page about this process. It can take some time and may need repeating but it is the best ay for the cat to feel confident again in their home. here is the page
/cat-litter-box.html

Also when you do let the cat out again make sure you transfer their scent around the home. use a clean towel rub on the cats body then rub around door frames, chairs etc.

you may also have to restrict access to the bedroom, as mattresses are a prime place for a act to scent as it smells most strongly of you and your girlfriend and sometimes this can make the cat feel as if their scent is missing. Hopefully though over time when your cat has settle d down with her litter tray and your girlfriend it shouldn;t be an issue any more.

I do understand how difficult and frustrating this can be, but it can be over come with a a little patience, time and effort on both you and your girlfriends part. remember the cat is not being naughty, they are feeling insecure that's all. As for discipline well again the cats view of discipline and ours is very different. It is all about negative and positive responses. My web page here goes into more detail
/cat-discipline.html

I hope I have been able to answer your question and i hope that in a short while you all will be living happily together again.

best wishes Kate
http;//www.our-happy-cat.com