# Cat Urinating and meowing loudly



## Pennylove (May 6, 2010)

My cat, Penny, is engaging in behavioral issues that is driving me crazy. The urinating and meowing loudly are unrelated (I think). But some background info first, my cat is my baby (she is really a one-person cat). I got her when she was 4 weeks old, and she is now 18 years old. Getting rid of her is now, and never was, an option. She is actually pretty active for her old age, and hasn't showed too many signs of slowing down yet. The only sign of her age is that she is a black cat that is starting to turn a little gray.

My sister and husband were living with me when the behavior problems of urinating outside the litter box started (about 2 years ago). I know that she has had in the last two years many recurrant UTI, so much so that the vet has put her on a special diet for it (science diet CV). But these problems corresponded with my sister having a baby in my house, and my cat has never ever liked young children (she will try to attack young children if she thinks I'm not watching her). I've been back and forth to the vet many times about this, and I think the urination outside the litter box is not entirely due to the UTI, because she keeps doing it when she doesn't have an infection. And she tries to be sneaky about it too. This mostly happens on the hallway carpet, and now the hallway smells all the time of cat pee, not matter what product we try to use to clean the carpet.

And as for the meowing, that started last year (when I became unemployed, and have yet to find work). It was during the night, many times and at all hours. I think having a new born baby would have almost been easier (and sometimes I wonder if she learned this behavior from the baby, except this started happening AFTER my sister and her kid moved out). And when I hear her meow loudly (and by that, I meant that to hear it you would think she was dying) I have watched her, and her entire body is hunched over like she is in severe pain. But as soon as she sees me, she straightens up and is happy that she got the attention she wanted. After examining her body, she doesn't seem to have any sore spots of any kind, and nothing I can tell that she is actually hurt anywhere. She seems only to want the attention. In the middle of the night, she usually sleeps with me part of the night, and the rest of the night, she goes into other rooms to meow loudly to get me up.

These two issues, while unrelated, is driving me crazy. Yesterday, my sister was visiting with her toddler, and the toddler went into the bathroom to potty. The litter box is in the bathroom, but my cat either couldn't wait and didn't want to share the room, or because she was jealous of the invasion of her space, Penny then decided to pee on the carpet outside the bathroom. I am getting tired of this. We are moving to a new house in about a month, and I don't want her to ruin the carpets or hardwood floors there. 

I plan to take her to the vet next week, but other than that, I really need some help. I don't believe she has another infection, and I'm almost sure it's a behavioral thing. Is there anything I can do?


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## Heidi n Q (Nov 22, 2006)

Welcome to CatForum and it sure seems like you are doing everything you can for her. I really cannot think of anything else to suggest, other than perhaps trying out different litter materials and keeping her home as stress-free as you can. Enzymatic cleaners, liberally poured and soaked into the fabrics to air-dry w/ possible repeat applications, should be able to break down the odor-causing bacteria of the urine and permanantly remove the odor.
_Nature's Miracle, Odo-Ban and Simple Solutions are three products I have used._

As for the night-time yowling, I have some experience with that. 
When my childhood cat reached the age of 19, she began to have what I considered to be episodes of dementia or alzheimer's. She would walk out of my bedroom, into the hall and just *yowl* as if her entire world had ended and she was bereft with grief. It was like she got "lost" if she were outside my bedroom. But if I called to her, or popped my head out the door so she could see me, you could *see* the light come back into her eyes and posture when she realized I really *was* there and she wasn't alone. This continued to varying degrees until she passed away at age 21.

I think your old girl is just experiencing age catching up to her. Love her while you still have her because I'm sure her time is limited. With my own cat, I began to confine her to my bedroom around age 20. It was too dangerous to let her free-roam our home as she could fall down the stairs. I would carry her downstairs to cuddle with me to watch TV and carry her back up at bedtime.

What an accomplishment to help her reach such an advanced age!
Best of luck with your old girl,
heidi =^..^=


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## hoofmaiden (Sep 28, 2009)

She's 18 -- she needs a COMPLETE geriatric workup ASAP. That means CBC, blood chemistry with T4, and urinalysis. She could be hyperthyroid or have diabetes or kidney disease or, simply, another UTI. IMO you can't go another step w/out making sure all this has been done.

A cat her age should be having all those tests done every 6 mos w/out fail.


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## Pennylove (May 6, 2010)

Thanks for the feedback. I get her entire blood work done about once a year, since she was 12. Everything has always been normal. I was going to get another one done next week when I take her in for another UTI test, just to be on the safe side.

And the yowling sounds exactly like what my cat is doing. Sometimes it has seemed that she had gotten lost almost, I have been around cats my entire life and have never seen that kind of behavior though. Maybe it's because I've never been around a cat that old before! I have had other people think that she is getting dementia, so I will discuss that possibility with my vet. This makes me sad, though. She's closer to me than most my relatives!


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