Liz Buchanan BVSc MRCVS
Keymaster
I wonder why you think that your vet would charge you $300 and then tell you that nothing is going on? You know that something has changed, because the cat appears to be urinating in a different (undesirable) place. Your vet would be able to weigh them / run a urine test to help rule out diabetes, kidney disease and perhaps consider ruling out pain (which increases stress / leads to irregular toileting), any of which might be contributing and all of which should be considered. Most vets do this first, because if one of these were present, the patient could suffer and behavioural modifications would be unlikely to make any difference. Vets will often agree to test a sample that is dropped off with them in advance, which can help you to get the most out of a consultation.
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However, many urinary problems ARE behavioural and although cats definitely have friends and form allegences, they are not thought to form bonded pairs with the loyalty that, say, rabbits do. A small change such as an unseen boundary dispute, or a subtle change in relative superiority between two cats, can be enough to set off real changes in urinary habits - as can human factors, for example a new sofa, a new household member or regular visitor, someone putting a breifcase down in a different place, an item of furniture blocking a cats' preferred way outside / to the litter tray and so on. In the UK at this time of year, we tend to see more urinary disease because it is suddenly cold, so cats are less keen to urinate outdoors. It's also the time of year when arthritic bones start to ache, affecting cats' ability to climb in and out of litter trays, or willingness to go in and out, and so on. Because cats' urinary habits are easily influenced by unobserved feline social stress (that's because humans we don't speak the subtle language of 'cat'), most vets now reccommend a litter tray per cat and at least an extra one, so that each cat always has a choice of two places to urinate. I have spoken with cat vets who ask owners to draw a map of the house and mark where each cat is at intervals throughout the day. Very often, it is seen that even cats who live happily together, have different 'territories' that they occupy within a house, with some common areas. Sometimes it is seen that one cat has to cross another's 'territory' to go to the toilet, or even urinate in another's territory, which at times they can be quite loathe to do. Introducing multiple trays, perhaps even with a choice of different substrate, in different locations around the house for a few weeks, is sometimes interesting. It can then become apparent what each cats' urinary preferences are and it can then be ensured that these are met. It seems a very odd thing to humans, but location of toileting sites (not being overlooked by humans for some cats) can be absolutely vital for urinary health and social cohesion. This has only recently been discovered - within the space of my career - and the icatcare website, as well as our own blog, may uncover a wealth of information. That was a very whistlestop tour of a lot of behavioural urinary issues, but it's definitely worth following up.
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