urine and feces on the bed...HELP

by Celeste
(Oklahoma)

My daughter has a ten year old spayed female cat named Max that she has had since a kitten. She is a very affectionate cat that loves to be held and sleeps in the bed. There is an Australian Shepherd in the house named Charlie that tends to herd her and can intimidate her. She began urinating and defecating on the bed. When this situation did not improve, Max came to live with me and my two dogs and two other cats. After a period of time, the same problem surfaced. My cat, Baer, began charging at her, and cat fights erupted on a regular basis that left urine and feces in their wake. Max began urinating and defecating on the bed. Max sleeps all night on the bed and naps most of the day on the bed, it is clearly her territory. I locked all the cats out of my bedroom with some improvement in the waste department, but no improvement in the cat fights. Max is now back home with my daughter and after two weeks home, she is defecating on the bed again. Once when my daughter was not home and once while my daughter slept. The dog is not allowed on the bed, but sleeps in the same room at night. My daughter lives in a small apartment, and the litter box is kept in a different room than her food and water. She is an excellent cat that we love very much, but the situation is now untenable. We need help understanding her behavior and suggestions as to how to fix this problem. Thanks for any advice you can give us! Celeste

Answer by Kate
well i think you may have a problem fixing this issue in your case.

Your cats is doing this to mark her territory ie make it smell very strongly of her and this is probably caused by her anxieties about the dog. As long as she is anxious she may always feel the need to do this.

the only thing you can try to do is to use the litter re training method which confines the cat to one room for a period of time. this helps to relax them I.e they have less space to worry about and also gets them re acquainted with their litter tray. the process is described here

https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-litter-box.html

It may simply be that this cat is not the sort of animal that can live happily with other animals and they become too anxious etc. If after several attempts at re training the problem continues you may have to think about re homing her to a no animal home.

best wishes Kate

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