My 7 month neutered boy has started urinating the left hand side of our french windows and also in the same location in the conservatory. I have cleaned the area with cold water and enzyme blocking cleaner but he still does it in the same spots
He also uses the litter box which cleaned out twice a day. We use fine grain clay clumping, and there are 2 boxes; which they use one for feaces and one for urine. The girl I have noticed marks in the box as when urinating she squats down then slowly rises shaking her tail.

Our garden is also visited by 2/3 neighbouring cats, and so I am wondering if either he is marking, or is going elsewhere because of his sister's marking.
We have started letting them outsude with supervision as we don't yet have a cat flap.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well, it could be due to other cats in the area, but it can also be due to a medical condition or the fact that you don't have the type of litter box or litter that your cat prefers. With two cats, you need at least 3 litter boxes! Put the new litter box where he is currently peeing and see if he will use it there. I know nobody wants a litter box out in the open like that, but at least you'll know if it's a distaste for the litter box (if he starts going somewhere else). Good luck.

Thanks for the reply, as I said he is still using the litter boxs. I checked the carpeted area and itvwas soaked through to the underlay, so I cleaned that area. We need to remove the carpet anyway, but may be sooner. I did put another tray there and it has not been used. I think he was returning to a spot, which had been sprayed previously as I saw marks on the wall. I hadn't realised it was soaked through so he must have thought it was a litter area. Will keep you posted on how it goes.

Update.

We put an empty litter box where he was peeing and he still pee'd outside it, so we had papers down all over the floor. I then put some litter in the tray and hey presto he used it! So it is not a dislike for the type of litter we use. We took him to the vet to be checked out, so far he is fine but still waiting for the urine analysis to come back. The vet did say that it may be because Lirael is showing dominance by spraying the inside of the box and she also scoffs down her food and then tries to eat Lars' food. We are now using Feliway to help keep them calmer.

The thing is now she has started using this new litter box as well as the other 2. The box is open so she can't spray it but I'm worried that it will put Lars of using it and he will find somewhere else to go. I also don't want both cats using the litter tray in the middle of the living room (I thought they liked discreet and quiet places to go!!). I did remove the lid from the other box but one of them poo'd in it and chicked the litter all over the place so I might just put it back. How can we stop Lirael using all of the trays?

When you put out multiple litter boxes, they are a free for all. It's not like each has the name of a cat and it is their personal, exclusive litter box. There is a distinct difference between a cat urinating in a litter box and marking. When the butt gets raised up, they are marking. It's still urine, but it's a different behavior. And they can mark when in the litter box. Marking is more of a territorial thing and usually happens in a multi-cat household. Do your cats get along fine? Is one ever aggressive with the other? Do they vie for the same spot in the house. Usually, one of the cats will be more dominant over the other cat. And it sounds like Lirael is the dominant cat in your house. The way to keep her from eating Lars food is to isolate her while Lars has the chance to eat and then you feed Lirael.

Feliway may help the situation and Jackson Galaxy has Spirit Essences which are holistic remedies to calm down the cats. Every cat has its own smell and other cats can be sensitive to that smell. I'm hoping your two get along as a pair. We don't usually hear about this type of behavior in a single-cat household.

Make sure your cats each have their own territories in your home -- two cat trees, etc. Multi-cat households need to catify their homes to accommodate the space each cat requires. You have the required number of litter boxes. Usually cats don't care which box they use and they may use all of them.

If you believe Lars was marking in a particular place, I'd still investigate what is there that might cause that. Near a window? Near a door? It may just be he is asserting HIS territory in your home.

There are a lot of ways of handling this of course, but in general they are not a lot of fun. One relatively easy answer would be to add quite a few more boxes, and put them in different parts of the house. You might want to concentrate the new ones in areas that aren't "disputed territory" like near windows that lead out to the garden. You could even go a bit more extreme by working out a cat flap that only your boy can go through (I've heard of someone doing this) and then putting "his" litterbox in that protected space. Another tact would be to clean the boxes more frequently and more thoroughly.

Feliway is a good idea, because it is meant for this very case. So you might want to put a feliway in places where there is marking going on. My understanding is that Feliway isn't so much a sedative as it is a substance that can make a cat feel more secure and not feel the need to mark.

You should also try to figure out if another cat(s) is marking the outside of your home. You can get a black light and check that out. You may have to do some cleanup if that is the case.

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The little monsters 3

Ok thanks, they do get along really well and sleep curled up together. There is never any aggression between them. We also have plenty of trees, and shelves on the walls to make the most of the space. I will just see how they go, we do want them to be indoor and outdoor cats, so hopefully that will help too when we decide they are old enough!

Please do not ever allow your cats outdoors unsupervised. You have no idea how many cats disappear each and every day, never to return home. An outdoor cat enclosure is a great thing to keep the cats safe when they are outside. I know people on here walk multiple bengals, but I have no idea how that would work. I have a difficult time just handling my Raiden.

I use 2 different types of litter, my cats stick to their chosen litter type and not the boxes. I found this out by try and error method.
I have similar situation - the boy is dominant and gets upset if someone is in his territory.
I still do get occasional spray every now and then ,so had to modify our house ( replaced carpets with vinyl in places)
Occasionally when he gets very upset and totally out of tune with his litter boxes , we use zylkene for couple of days 3-5 for him to calm down and go back to normal.
Any strangers in the house, any other cats outside our house can easily upset him a lot.

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Sherry, thank you for your concern, I take it you live in the US, and I know letting kats out is a no there. We live in the UK in a very cat friendly neighbourhood. We have trackers on them and they are chipped. We won't be letting them out unsupervised until they are at least 1 year and can make sure they are trained to come when called and are able to climb our fences.

Hi BluBengal

I was just wondering which tracker you use? We are also in the UK and started letting our two out at about 9 months old I think (last May) and have just got a microchip cat flap for them which they are loving! With the lovely weather we have been experiencing it was becoming more difficult to call them back in before I went to work so they had been pretty much supervised for nearly a year. Still not allowed out at night though. However, only this week, Jagger managed to get himself locked in a neighbours garage. We found him the same day after knocking doors as I could faintly hear him when I called, but I am now looking at trackers and would be very interested to know which one you use. The only problem is they are very good at losing their collars on a regular basis as well!

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Clare
Hendrix and Jagger, Brown Marble Boys (born 18 August 2013)
Hampshire, UK

Please tell me how to train a cat to come when called! LOL. The only time Raiden ever does that is if I'm opening him up a can of food and calling him. I know the UK seems different! But that doesn't mean cats don't go missing over there. Have the trackers gotten smaller? They used to be pretty big to put on a cat. We all know cats who are allowed outdoors do not live as long (in most cases). I've owned dozens of cats throughout the years and only two had to be put to sleep (one due to FeLV and one at age 17 who had kidney failure). The rest all vanished! Until my last stray disappeared, it really didn't occur to me to keep a cat inside -- then Raiden, the bengal, arrived! He was allowed to roam free by my neighbor and Raiden sustained multiple injuries due to cat fights. After one such fight when the neighbor was out of town and I rushed the cat to a 24/7 vet in another county, the neighbor just gave the Raiden to me. My husband HATES cats, but has allowed Raiden to be an indoor cat and I take him for two walks and he has a large enclosure on the deck. It would break my heart to have something happen to him. I know most bengal owners have a huge financial investment in their cat and I wonder how they can just put that investment out the door and hope the investment comes back home. Never having visited the UK, I honestly don't know the situation. I know most have conservatories and gardens. I hope the tracking thing works out for you and your kitty remains safe and sound for many, many years.

Hi Sherry

You'd be surprised! Both mine will come running to my other half's whistle - problem is, I can't whistle! Most of the time they will come when I call, but I think Jagger has selective hearing... When we started to let them out, we would call or whistle and when they came back always gave them treats so the incentive is there for them to respond. And I didn't feed them until they came back in either which helped!

Yes, I get the impression the UK is very different from the US when it comes to letting cats out. To be honest, I worry about them all the time when they are out, however they are creatures of habit and they've had nearly a year of being let out in the morning, to be brought back in and kept in until we are home and then they will be let out and then brought in again at night. Even at weekends when we are home and have the doors open, they tend to keep to this routine. We live in a small cul-de-sac and our garden backs on to other gardens - in fact I think they can get to 30 odd gardens from ours without encountering a road. They tend to be within ear shot most of the time and we know which directions they both have preferences for if they decide to ignore us! They won't go near strangers and there are no predators really, other than foxes and the only time they are likely to pick a fight with a cat is when they have young. I'm always checking on where our two are and will call them so they touch base regularly.

I have been looking into trackers this week and I think they are smaller than they used to be, but it would definitely be helpful to hear from someone who is using one and can recommend it.

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Clare
Hendrix and Jagger, Brown Marble Boys (born 18 August 2013)
Hampshire, UK

Hi Tabatha, we haven't started letting them out unsupervised and we do have a microchip detector cat flap that we are yet yo install. The tracker is the Loc8tor http://www.loc8tor.com/uk/pets/loc8tor-pet.html, it is reasonably ok and our friends recomended it. They have a bengal and she comes home when they activate it as it beeps on their collar. We have been switching ours on during feeds to try to get them to associate the nose with dinner time.



Sherry, we are clicker training them to come when called, so far it works in the garden and they will come up to us when we call, although I'm not sure if they would if they were further away. We have pressed their locators and Lirael just seems to ignore it if she is running about in the garden or walking on top of the fence.

I too am nervous at them going missing, but they love to be outside and cry at the door/window for hours and it breaks my heart to see them so distressed, but then it fills me with joy when I see them running about in the garden. I do want to try to make the garden safe and to try to prevent them from going out of the garden, but I don't see anything that will stop them.
Next door's cat uses our garden as an entrance and exit from his to the neighbourhood. There is also another cat who comes in and has standoffs with next doors cat and leaves faeces in our flowerbeds and I think he marks as well, So I really want to them to start marking their territory and to realise that it is theirs and not be stuck inside when the other cats are taunting them.

Well, the thing is, be careful what you wish for, because if both cats meet outside, there is going to be a fight, and not just a little indoor play cat fight, they will be using teeth and hind legs to inflict as much damage on each other as possible. That may not end well, even for the "winner" of such a fight.

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The little monsters 3