Young cat peeing in my bed!

Question
Hello, my 4 month old kitten started peeing in my bed a couple of time, so I made her sleep in the bath room at night for a week.  I tried letting her sleep with me and she did it again.  I put out two litter boxes one by the bedroom and one in the bathroom.  She slept in the bathroom for another week... I washed everything in Natures Miracle.  She did so good for a month.  Then my sister spent the night with me and the kitten peed on the bed where she was sleeping.... She has done good till tonight... I cleaned out litter box every night and I heard her in it.  Then she came to my bed and peed!  What is up with this... In my 55 years I have never has a cat pee in my bed!  My husband will be returning from overseas and I am afraid the cat will pee on him.. Thank you for any help you can give me... My kitten is a Bengal Cat.

Answer
HI Marie,

Cats urinate outside the box almost always due to medical problems. Your cat may have a bladder infection, and left untreated this can get very serious and damage the kidneys. Please take her to a vet right away and have her checked. If you are given antibiotics, make sure to give them all.

The other possibilities for your cat's behavior are:

1. litterbox not clean enough
2. if your cat is declawed, the pain from the paws can cause stepping in litter to be very painful - have her checked up to make sure everything is healing OK (PS declawing is very very painful and unnecessary so I hope you didn't have her declwed)
3. anxiety or other psychological problems

Here is an article about how to handle this:

http://catnet.stanford.edu/articles/infosheet_litterbox.pdf

Also, try to get your cat more water by feeding mostly or preferably all, canned food. Here is some more information about cat nutrition and the problems some foods cause, including urinary tract problems:

http://www.catnutrition.org/clienthandout.html

If the vet says there is nothing wrong with her medically, I think you should try using the Feliway plug-in diffuser and/or spray. Feliway helps reduce anxiety and aggression in cats, it mimics relaxing pheromones that cats exude from their cheek glands. Spraying doorways and furniture with Feliway can stop inappropriate urination and calm nervous cats. The plug-in diffuser creates a constant release of Feliway, the spray is best for local and immediate but short-term effect. They work well used together, with the spray used on your bed or area that she is peeing. It is not detectable by humans at all (the spray smells like rubbing alcohol when you first use it, but that quickly evaporates). It is sold in most pet stores and online, for example at www.drsfostersmith.com.

There are also several herbal calming and anti-depressant supplements or medications you can try. Talk to your vet about this, but a good one to try is NutriCalm, it can be mixed in canned food or a little tuna and cats will eat it. It has calming herbs that can help anxious cats.

Good luck!