When am I allowed to say "enough is enough"?

[dottyblue]

I need a listening ear.

I have a 10 year old cat who is ruining my home.  He pees anywhere he wants and nothing helps.  We have tried everything; my vet confirmed last summer that she is out of ideas for fixing the peeing.  I am not looking for suggestions here.  I guarantee if you suggest something, we have done it; food, meds, litter, boxes, everything.

I have replaced 3 living room rugs (area) since last summer.  We are going to lose our security deposit because he is ruining the hardwood floors.  He has ruined my couch, armchair and ottoman because he doesn't clean his butt and drags his pee butt all over.  I walk into a house every evening where I have to go hunting for piss in corners of the room before my 1.5 year old DS is allowed down to play.  I hate this cat, and I hate myself for saying that because he is my baby.

I just dropped $600 at the vet for blood work, urinalysis, etc because he is losing/gaining weight.  Think skinny/fat for cats.  He's losing muscle tone but has these fatty, bulging sides.  An x-ray showed that he doesn't have cancer or a tumor, so they want an ultrasound.  We're now looking at another $300 and we MIGHT not even get a diagnosis with that.  If we do get a diagnosis, it might not fix the peeing problem.  The peeing has been an issue for 6 years and this is a brand new health issue.

When am I allowed to say "enough" and have him put down?  I can't bring myself to do that right now.  I couldn't even discuss it with the vet last week.  I feel like I have failed him.  I can't keep pouring money in to this cat - in the last 5 years I have spent at least $5,000-7,000 in trying to solve the peeing problem.

[charlatti]

Can I offer hugs and a big virtual glass of wine? I think only you can answer when you are ready to say you've done enough. Is your cat miserable too? If his quality of life isn't good, that might help you make the decision.

[purrbox]

I'm so sorry. I'm going through a similar situation with our cat. She has destroyed the carpet upstairs (urine) and our living room furniture (clawing). I've tried just about everything: pheromone collars, soft paws, tape and aluminum foil for the furniture... nothing seems to work. We've tolerated this for four years because we love her.

However, now we have a baby on the way, and I don't think I can overlook her biggest issue: clawing and biting people. I think she has a very high prey drive, and unfortunately, all of the play time in the world doesn't stop her from randomly attacking hands and arms. DH and I have so many scars from her biting and clawing. I'm legitimately worried for our baby. We've been strongly considering making her an outdoor cat, but I'm so hesitant because I'd be heart-broken if anything bad happened to her.

I have no advice, except to say do what you need to do and try not to feel too bad about it. It sounds like you've put so much time, money, and effort into doing everything possible to fix this situation, but you shouldn't have to live life like this.

Have you looked into cat shelters?

[dottyblue]

Apr 7, 2014 13:49:37 GMT -5 purrbox said:

I'm so sorry. I'm going through a similar situation with our cat. She has destroyed the carpet upstairs (urine) and our living room furniture (clawing). I've tried just about everything: pheromone collars, soft paws, tape and aluminum foil for the furniture... nothing seems to work. We've tolerated this for four years because we love her.

However, now we have a baby on the way, and I don't think I can overlook her biggest issue: clawing and biting people. I think she has a very high prey drive, and unfortunately, all of the play time in the world doesn't stop her from randomly attacking hands and arms. DH and I have so many scars from her biting and clawing. I'm legitimately worried for our baby. We've been strongly considering making her an outdoor cat, but I'm so hesitant because I'd be heart-broken if anything bad happened to her.

I have no advice, except to say do what you need to do and try not to feel too bad about it. It sounds like you've put so much time, money, and effort into doing everything possible to fix this situation, but you shouldn't have to live life like this.

Have you looked into cat shelters?

Thank you.

I just can't put him in a shelter.  No one is going to adopt a cat with pee issues, and when we adopted him it took him almost a full year to adjust.  That was 8 years ago.  I can't expect him to adjust to another home change.  It would, I believe, quite literally kill him.  If that were my only option, I would continue to suck it up because I can't abandon my boy.  But I am finally reaching the realization that he's quite miserable.

((hugs)) to you and your situation as well.

[katietornado]

We have three cats. They are all around 10 years old. Two are pee-ers. One is just an asshole, and he confines it to our one couch (he takes out his wrath on that couch approximately weekly), but the other suffers from feline interstitial cystitis. Have you looked into that diagnosis with your vet? We have all but cured him by doing two things: we started feeding him frozen raw food (rather than grain-free Taste of the Wild) and we started letting him outside into our fully fenced backyard (from which he cannot escape). Incidentally, this same cat has kept his fat belly no matter what/how much we feed him.

I can absolutely sympathize with your situation. Coming home to cat pee everywhere is the absolute worst. Of course only you can decide when enough is enough. I would make a few suggestions though:

- Confine the cat. We find that Petey pees when we are out of the house/asleep and he is loose. If we confine him when we're gone/sleeping, the peeing is reduced dramatically. Have you noticed such a trend? Along these lines, the cat could be stressed about the baby. Give the cat a quiet, kid-free zone in which to relax. Throw in some Feliway, and that'll make it even better.

- Try raw food if you haven't already. For us, it was pretty much a miracle. Like flipping a switch.