My cats are 7 years old and have been 100% indoor cats all their lives.
The female, Imp, has a history of urinary tract infections that have
caused her to pee on my bed and futon. The male, Tiger, has never had
this problem.

For three months now, I have been fighting a losing battle with peeing
on those two peices of furniture. I finally had to start closing the
door to my bedroom to save my bed early in this period, but the futon
in the living room has continued as a target and can't be restricted
unless I lock her in my library... not an ideal solution to throw her
in "jail" for her offenses.

The first of July, I had both of them in for their annual check-ups and
I had the vet run a urinalysis on her. No infection found for once.
Rather bad news for me since that has always been the problem before
and easily fixed (if you want to call giving this cat medicine easy).
They sold me some Science Diet CD/S and told me to ween them onto it
and see if it helps. Six weeks later and it hasn't.

In the meantime, I bought a new futon mattress with two vinyl covers to
protect the mattress... just in case after four years of her peeing
there when she had an infection that I simply couldn't get it clean
enough now. That turned out to be a good investment... not because it's
stopped the peeing on the futon, but because it's much easier to clean
than the cloth one I had on the old mattress and keeps the pee away
from the actual mattress. She also did something she has never done
before the other morning... peed on the comforter on the futon while I
was under it sleeping.

So now what is left to try?

They both still use the litter boxes. No change in litter... still
using the only one they've ever liked, Fresh Step Scoopable. (I've
always only had two boxes for them, but I even went out a week ago and
got a third... so far neither of them has touched the new box... any
ideas how to get them to know it's ok to use it?) The current behavior
doesn't seem to match previous "my litter boxes aren't up to snuff"
behavior of peeing next to the box instead of in them anyway.

After reading through the Planet Urine web site
(http://planeturine.com/catpethappy.html) a while ago, I only saw one
thing there that seemed a possible explanation since the surface
texture has changed but the location of the inappropriate peeing
hasn't. Therefore, I've moved one of the old boxes that they do use
into the living room near the futon. All have been by the back door of
the house since I moved in a year ago. We'll see if that improves
things any.

Since there was no UTI found in July, what other medical conditions
could contribute to this type of behavior? Planet Urine states there
are several, but doesn't list any and the only one I ever see mentioned
here is UTI.

Any other ideas from anyone? My ability to think like a cat is
obviously not being very successful on this matter. :(

--
Jeff Traigle
traigle@si.umich.edu
http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~traigle/