The little fucker did it again. He peed on the couch. Twice in the same day!
We woke up this morning to find a damp spot on the right side of the couch. I used the cleaning spray that Katy bought when he peed on the couch last weekend and it got rid of the smell. When I got back from work today, everything seemed hunky dory. We went for dinner at the pub and when we came back, lo and behold, he'd peed on the couch again. On the left side of the couch.
Katy thinks that it's because we've introduced him to going outside, where he smells a bunch of other cats and this has somehow triggered the instinct to mark his territory. Maybe. Looks good on paper, but it will not be tolerated. Trouble is, there's no way to really enforce that. We're going to get a cat flap installed in the back door so he can go out when he wants to. Hopefully he'll catch on to the concept of peeing “outside” where we won't want to kill him every day.
Besides from sliming the couch on a regular basis, he's in fine form. He gets lots of fuss and still likes a good game of fetch-the-catnip-mouse.
I really hope this behaviour stops quickly though, cause we're running low on cat pee remover and I'm running low on patience.
We've had this problem with a couple of our cats. It's often the case that the cat is anxious about something. Sometimes happens after a major (to the cat at least) change has happened at home, or if they want attention for some reason, although it sounds like he gets plenty of attention. Might be worth checking that he doesn't have a urinary infection if you haven't already.
Some good info on this site http://cats.about.com/cs/litterboxproblems/a/urinewoes.htm
scroll down for the rest of the article and useful tips on retraining.
(http://livejournal.com/users/nothingtoyou)
Seconded on checking for a urinary infection (or other physical problem) if you haven't already.
And hope is not a plan. If you want his behavior to change, you need to find ways to discourage the unwanted behavior and reinforce the wanted behavior. Period. The article referenced in the above comment has several good suggestions.
One thing that helped when our cats were refusing to use the litter box was putting small dishes of food at the spots where they were relieving themselves. Cats will not urinate or defecate where they eat, preferring to keep the two activities as separate as possible. We also found that they didn't like the smell of white vinegar, so we placed a small dish of that in a potted plant that had been targeted. Basically, we tried to make the spots they were using unattractive for toilet activities, so that the litter box became their best option. It took a bit of time, but all worked in the end.
(http://livejournal.com/users/ultimategirl)