cat peed on himself?

My kitten is about nine months old and we had him neutered this morning. For the past month or two, he has been refusing to use his litterbox (which he shares with another cat and has quite effectively for most of his life) unless he is the first one to use it after we clean it. Otherwise he's chosen a corner of our living room to go in (grrrr) but we just attributed this to his rising testosterone levels and we figured it would go away after he was neutered. Well he'd only been home a few hours (and the litterbox was completely clean) when he decided to go on the front doormat (which is now ruined). None of us actually saw him pee, but his bottom half was COVERED in urine. It was like he either peed on himself or, it seems more likely from the way it was on him, just sat in his own urine. He's still pretty groggy from his surgery earlier today, but this isn't his first surgery (he had surgery on his paw when he was quite a bit younger) and he didn't do anything like this then. We phoned the emergency vet (ours was, of course, closed by this time) and they said just to clean him off as carefully as we could with a washcloth and to keep an eye on him to see if he does it again and to phone our regular vet in the morning. I was just wondering if this is normal behavior, perhaps caused by the anesthesia, or if it could allude to something more serious? I've never had this problem with our other cat, who was neutered when he was around six months old. Could this also have something to do with us waiting so late to neuter our younger one? Thanks

Answer from KAte

Dont worry this is not very unusual at all. there are lots of issues here.

first of all the incident this morning could simply be because he was still affected by the drugs after surgery and was not able to control himself properly. The vets were right keep an eye on him and if he does it again contact your normal vets.

Also cats dont like sharing litter trays at all. As you know they are driven by scent and even if they are neutered this can still affect them. So usually it is advisable to have two separates trays.

Any un neutered cats in the home will cause problems again due to scent and territory issues, so yes all your animals need to be neutered.

Even after neutering the hormone levels can take a few weeks to drop significantly to stop these instincts so you may not notice a change in his behavior for a few weeks yet.

It may be an idea to keep him in one room with his litter tray for a few days to give him time to recover, relax and to get used to his tray again.

best wishes kate