I see - no need to apologise I probably read it too quickly. I mentioned the possibility of it being the baby she is upset about more than the other animals because (dog not cat here but..) I had a cavalier KC spaniel who lived with just me and my daughter - when my daughter was a teenager (and the dog was by then over 5 yrs old) and my daughter had anyone to stay with her, if her pal left their clothes on the floor, or the end of the bed, or a chair - and the CKC Spaniel could get into her bedroom - she quite often peed on their clothes!

We were both gobsmacked by this as it had never happened with our stuff. And the thing was, the dog never ever slept in my daughter's room with her (much to my daughter's dismay at times!) she always slept in my room with me. (But she was able to go back and forth if she wanted to - would sometimes start off with my daughter and swap back to me when I went up to bed).

Just that your story reminded me of this (which I'd forgotten about because it is almost 10 yrs ago now!)

But it did make us think she was 'jealous' of my daughter's friend(s)? You know - a sort of 'I peeess on your friend so there!'

do you have any other ideas on what I could do?

My friend is a vet and coming for dinner on saturday so I was going to ask her to check her out.

All the cats I knew that had the same problem never returned to their normal selves and their owners had the unpleasent issue of cat mess in the house for their entire lives,

most cats do not cope with change hense why they poo in the house to claim THEIR territory/items they like to reasure themselves. living with other cats when a cat has had its own place can be very stressfull. Even a friendly cat would not appreciate feline intruders and since their are two established cats at the house things must be very stressfull for the feline inhabitants. It is not out jelousy cats do not think that way the cat is simply peeing in and on familiar scents to claim what is theirs as theirs.


It is a problem that will be on going and rarely sorts itself out once it starts. Its very difficult to re house train a cat once it has started going in the house in its adult life. Another change could make the cat even worse and stop going outside all together.

It is all ways a good idea in the event of major behaviour changes to seek out vetinary advice as they can rule out any health issues that may have caused it

just as an aside, how do you know its definitely your cat doing the spraying? Have you specifically seen her do it ?

I would definitely give the plugs in a chance to see if it makes any difference, babies cry and cats and dogs can get very stressed by this.. How is she round the baby? Do you let her near the baby etc - as perhaps keeping her separate is making more of an issue of it etc.

i definitely think its worth trying the plug ins before anything else but you need to give it a good few weeks to see if it works

To be fair to her, No, I haven’t actually seen her do it but the reasons I believe its her is

The seat that was weed on is right next to the dogs cage and the big cats don’t dare come in that room never mind right next to Zulu lol. He loves Mollie, but he would bust out of that cage to get the other cats!

The size of poo in the room was hers – the big cats do heeuge ones literally bigger than Zulus

She does show her jealousy in other ways – like Katelynn was in her high chair last night, we pulled her closer to the table and as soon as we did mollie jumped up on to the dining room chairs as if to say give me the attention and sort of trying to get attention when you are giving the baby attention and she “sulks” if you don’t give it to her.

She is only specifically weeing on Katelynn’s things – she is spayed so I don’t know if they still scent mark things, but its not massive wees but enough to make things stink. She hasn’t touched any other item other than Katelynn’s toys, seats and blankets and she still continues to go outside to wee/poo and also uses her litter tray.

Fortunately I don’t have a “cryer” and Mollie is an extremely confident little cat (with people and Zulu) so has never had a fright that I have seen with the baby. We never separate them deliberately as such so she is always allowed to be around my little one although I don’t like them getting too much physical contact. She is fine around her – she doesn’t act aggressively or shy, just normal, but if you do go and bend down to Katelynn for example she does sometimes come running up trying to get attention even if she hasn’t looked for any all day she picks that moment.

The book I mentioned in my earlier post is called Cat Confidential, written by Vicky Halls. It has some fantastic advice for multi-cat households.

Feliway plug ins are marvellous and I couldn't recommend them highly enough, wish had got them sooner than we did. We put one up two weeks before our latest kitten arrived and within 24 hrs she had made friends with our then youngest girl and within 48!hrs they were completely bonded.

Now I'm no cat expert even though I have four however any animal not just a cat who has been the centre of attention for the last two years is probably going to have a reaction to a new baby. Adorable that they are, a new baby brings big life changes, your sole attention is on the baby so of course the cat will feel left out

Having said that, I don't think the cat is being spiteful or jealous her whole world has been turned upside down. Take for instance her litter, how often is it cleaned out. I'm not being picky here. I have one that when using ordinary litter if the litter didn't have a complete change every day, litter tray scrubbed etc, would pooh outside it. After much experimenting with litters I have had great success with Cats Best clumper. Poo & pee balls are lifted out twice a day and it always smells ok. Our girl approves of it. Four cats and we have 5 litter trays

Incidentally I disagree that a cats toilet habits can't be changed, you just need to find out what the trigger is. Maybe she has felt challenged and threatened by the other
cats all along but settled into an uneasy existence, however this new arrival in the form of the baby has tilted her off balance so to speak

In the meantime can you not keep the door to the baby's room closed? If she can't get in, she cant toilet in the room.

Hiya,

Thanks for the tops re the plug ins, will definitely be getting some and see if it helps or atleast improve things in the meantime.

As I said, normally she cannot get in her room and I don’t know how she did! We have extremely heavy fire doors that close on themselves, I think someone must have propped our room door open and she must have got in that way as I would never let her in the baby’s room myself.

The litter tray is picked every day for poop and cleaned out every 2 days or so, as I have noticed when she was much younger things would end up on the edge of it on the carpet if it was too “dirty” for her, so we’re quite strict about it now – and using the litter tray as I say has never been a problem for her previously and she is still using it now as normal and going outside to the toilet too.

I think the plug ins could certainly help her behaviour with the other cats – and maybe this might improve everything as it is alot for her to cope with,

Its more how to improve her jealousy with my little girl?

Try giving her a Kong? Their are cat kong style toys out their this way your cat can occupy itself when in the prescence of your child. Does your child play with the cat?? You could maybe get some of those feathery toys for child to get the cat to play with.

This way your cat can learn to relax around your child and build a good bond.

I don’t think my daughter could really play with her yet – she only 5 months so the feather would probably end up trying to go in her mouth at the mo lol. She will come sit next to us when she’s having her bottle and I try and give her a stroke when I’m doing that, but she does try and get up on my lap so I do have to push her away as there isn’t the space and with her paws going in the litter tray I don’t want her actually touching my little one with them. She approaches her as well while she is lying on the floor for example, like this morning and came and sniffed her head. We never chase her away when she is around the baby, the only time we have to push her away is when she tries to actually get on her or something like that as I don’t want Mollie to be afraid of the baby – I don’t think she is though. She’s a super confident cat with people. Her behaviour at times is just sometimes very erratic. I will have a look into the kong – sounds interesting!