Hi, I would like someone's opinion. I got my kitten last March and when I first got her she did urinate on the duvet twice. Since then I didnt have any problems until last week. I broke up with my boyfriend but because we bought the house, he is still living in the house and sleeping in the spare room. However, last week and this week when he decided to lie under the duvet in my bed when I wasnt there, my kitten decided to urinate on the duvet again. Is this territorial behaviour because its only her and myself that sleep in the bed or am I just over-reacting?

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Anwen

sounds like a possibility.

mind you my older girls who are entire, all have dirty habits. they pee on the duvet or the sofa among other places, for no apparent reason. no changes in their circumstances to upset them, i think it is just marking to be honest.

i can no longer have them in the living room or bedroom unsupervised.

believe me, it's not through lack of toilet training or anything like that, they are all very good at using the trays...they just mark other places aswell. two of them were bred by me, so i know there have been no changes that could upset them or different litters. they used the trays perfectly as kittens but this started as they reached calling age.

i put it down to them being in a breeding state & marking their territory or announcing their condition. unfortunately their choice of places to mark aren't favoured by me!

they have thier own room in my house now, where they can mark all they like, & there are no soft furnishings which would be difficult to keep clean. this way everyone is happy. they come in to my living room when i can keep an eye on them, & go back to their room at other times.

is your girl entire? if so this is probably the reason. if not, she may well be upset by the atmosphere created by your split & is showing her disapproval in the only way she knows.

either way, best to keep her out of the bedroom for a while & use a purpose cleaner on the soiled materials to remove the scent. ("simple solution" worked wonders for me).

Hi Anwen

Yes, unfortunately Bengals do like 'marking' where their owners spend a lot of time; the bed being the obvious place as it smells the strongest of Mummy and/or Daddy and no other cat is allowed there is their thinking!

There are a few things you could try... A plastic cover over the actual quilt will save on heavy washing obviously. You could place a sheet of some kind over your bed during the day to 'mask' your smell, and plonk a few books etc.. on the top so that the bed surface isn't flat for them to 'wee'. They will soon get the message after a few days

The obvious advice is to keep the cat out of the bedroom unless supervised and/or keep a litter box in there although not ideal I know!

Bengals also have a tendency to 'wee' on dirty laundry. Again, this is because it has the strongest 'you' smell.
Sometimes new queens wiill venture towards clean laundry too when in labour. A biological washing powder contains bleach which has similar 'fatty deposits' in it as cat urine. Therefore the smell is familar to them, so try to use non-biological if your Bengal ever uses a clean laundry pile as her loo!

As well as simple solution, I swear by soda crystals (either powder/spray) which really does remove every trace of the cat's urine. A sprinkle of surgical spirit over the top of a surface is also a good deterrent

Rest assured though, she will stop marking in time, but these precautions have worked for us so I hope that they help you too!

Mxx

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Best Wishes,
Maddy

'changing the subject slightly'..

Talking of girl power....Kira & Nico went on the rampage last night after a hefty meal of whiskas kitten in jelly...
they bombed around the house like loons and then Kira promtly vomited on Matts side on the bed...
just near his pillow... hahaha good girl
so, fairly rapidly...it was the first time he ever changed the quilt cover....
two excellent results

Thanks a lot for everyone's advice! I think it is too much of a coincidence to not be her telling him 'get off mummy's bed!'. Saying that he does love her as well and treats her as well as me- he gives her a hot water bottle into her basket every night and sometimes in the morning depending how cold it is! He does bite her though and treats her like a little dog but she loves it and growls at him!

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Anwen

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~Trisha~

Hi All =)

my bengal girl, Linden, has recently started urinating on our duvet. She has been neutered. She doesn't do it all the time, but probably once every week or two. If we catch her scratching and getting ready we can put her in the litter box and she'll happily do her business.

Even more recently, we have discovered that we are expecting our first (non-feline) child. Lining up the dates, Linden started probably about a week after conception. So I am wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar? Is it possible that my cat is a better pregnancy test than anything from a chemist?

I'm wondering if changes in scent on the bed would be the cause. It kind of matches in well with Anwen's post if her bengal is urinating due to the different scent when someone else lies in the bed.

For the record, when she first started doing it, she was weeing there again every time we had the duvet cleaned and returned to the bed (within 5 mins of making the bed!!). So I am assuming that she could still smell where she had done it before and kept going back there. Since then it was suggested to me that cats can't smell anything past the smell of vinegar. If we clean the duvet in vinegar we definitely find we get a few more days out of it before she goes back there again. My cleaning ritual now includes a soak in vinegar followed by a wash in detergent followed by a rinse in disinfectant then a rinse in clean water. She doesn't seem able to smell anything on it until i have been sleeping in it again for a week. We also have a waterproof mattress protector (and a spare!!), and also a spare duvet so we have something to use when the other is being cleaned. Before we discovered the vinegar trick we had both duvets being cleaned and were into a third set of blankets before the first duvet would be cleaned and dry and ready for use (or urinating on!!) again. Now the spare always has time to be cleaned before needed again.

Cheers,
Kelly