Whos Peeing & Why?

Question
This, I believe, is a bit more complicated than your usual bad cat behavior question. You see, last year I got married and around October 2003 we merged our three cats (two mine, one my wife's) and I thought things were going just about as well as could be expected. Her prized cat, a female now about 13 and in somewhat failing health, had to deal with my two cats--including a large 18-lb. 12-year-old lovable but somewhat pushy male--invading her domain (as we've temporarily merged households in my wife's condo). While there have been occasional bad incidents, mostly on the part of my male (including his initially deciding to mark his territory inside), I've tended to dismiss them as learning situations. But now, within the last few weeks, we've woken up twice to cat pee on/in/near the foot of the bed--including on the edges of the covers, sheets, cat blanket, cat mats and floor. While we haven't actually seen anyone doing it my wife's sure it's my big male possibly acting up since she's seen and I've heard him trying to rake over it with his paw. We fear it could also be that he's developing diabetes due to his weight problem. I, on the other hand, am not so sure. Could it be her female with the ailing kidneys losing control--and possibly my male then coming along and adding his wee to it as well--or...? Since our third cat, a smaller female, doesn't spend as much time in the bedroom we're fairly sure it isn't her but, on the other hand, she has had trouble peeing once or twice before to the point we feared she had systitus(sp?). In any event, how would you advise us to proceed both in figuring out what's going on with our cats and what to do with our peed on covers, sheets, cat blanket and cat mats? Also, do you have any theories on what might be causing this situation (based on what I've told you so far)? Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

Answer
Well, given that things have been going along fairly well between them for some time, I tend to think that it may be a health issue. As long as none of the cats are showing any signs of illness, here's how I would proceed.

1) Add an additional litter box and if you can tolerate it in the bedroom near the bed, that would be great.

2) Fill this box with Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract Litter. I am pretty sure Petsmart.com carries it, if not, do a web search for a place near you. It is a specially treated litter designed to correct urination problems such as these.

3) Confine one cat to the bedroom at a time or alternatively, confine the cats one at a time to a bathroom for the night. This way you may be able to determine the culprit if the Cat Attract doesn't appear to be more enticing than the bed.

4) Once you think you know who the mystery pee-er is, make a vet appt. for him or her. The vet can very quickly and painlessly catheterize the cat to get a urine sample and see if there is a health problem and if so you can go from there and I'm sure the vet will have more advice for you.

5) Get some Simple Solution or Nature's Miracle for your bed linens. Both are enzymatic cleaners that are good at removing organic stains and odors. Pretreat the nasty spots, let them sit for a minute or two, then throw in the wash and you should be fine. Petsmark should carry both of these as well.

Hope this helps

iris