Kitty update

[mamajoan]

The good news is that Chubby did start to warm up to me a bit. I worked from home yesterday, as I think I posted, and by the end of the afternoon (i.e., right as I needed to start getting ready to go pick up the kids), he came out from his hiding place and started following me around meowing and begging for petting. So that was good. He hid again through the evening while the kids were around, and came out again after they were asleep -- leapt right up onto my lap on the sofa and head-butted my chin, took lots of petting, then curled up on the couch next to me for a while.

So that was good. But then I made the mistake of assuming that he liked me enough to take medicine from me. ;P Oh, did I mention that they brought him to me with ear mites? They did provide the medicine for it, but I don't know anything about ear mites or giving ear medication to kitties, so I was kind of floundering. I read the not-too-helpful directions on the package and then gave it a try. Long story short, it didn't work out and he returned to his hiding place. *facepalm*

The other bad news is that when I got up this morning, and then even more so when we came home tonight, the place smells really strongly of cat pee. :( He *is* peeing in his box, and I know the smell isn't coming from there because I use Feline Pine litter and it works really well. Plus I put my face right next to the box and sniffed and didn't smell anything. It smells a lot stronger in the hallway, which unfortunately is the once place in the apt where we have a carpet (horrible, scraggly ugly gross carpet that I can't pull up because of tedious details having to do with the construction of the floor).

So I can't track down where exactly he might have peed that I'm smelling, and this is driving me crazy. The people who brought us Chubby did provide some enzyme cleaner stuff, and I sprinkled it liberally all over the carpet, and the smell is definitely getting better, but not entirely gone. This is disheartening because I haaaaaaate that smell so much. I guess the solution is just to dump the stuff in a bucket and mop the entire apt with it, and then saturate the scrap of carpet with it. But who has the time and energy for that??? (answer: richips hopefully, but that's a whole other post!)

Anyway, I'm reeeeallllly hoping that now that Chubby has discovered his litterbox, he'll stop peeing elsewhere. Sigh.

Aaaaaand that's all the typing Ruthie is going to permit me at the moment.

Comments

[sandykidd.livejournal.com]

If I can find my blacklight, you can have that to locate his secret pee spots after dark with all the lights out. And also, if I find the blacklight it will be with the stuff we used to use to train our cats against that sort of behavior and then I'll be able to give you a link to the website we bought it from. I'll look tonight.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

That would be awesome, thanks. I definitely suspect that there are some "traces" of our former kitty around, and if I can eradicate those, hopefully, Chubby will be willing to stick to the litterbox.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Why can't you rip out the carpet and just replace it with cheap linoleum?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Apparently it's like glued to the floorboards or something. And there's a possibility of asbestos underneath as well. The guy I hired to remove the carpet in the rest of the rooms took one look and said that I should just leave it. I figure some day I'll have money and will hire an actual floor expert to come and evaluate the options...some day....

[emrinalexander.livejournal.com]

Don't panic - he's nervous, still not trusting his new environment, and marking behavior under those conditions is instinctive. I found by trial and error, when getting a new cat, the best thing is if you can start them out in one area where they're isolated, then gradually, as they relax, let them into the rest of the house. It really seems to reduce the peeing problem. If you can find a product in your pet store called "Nature's Magic" it really works to remove both the smell and the actual residual that we humans can't smell (which is what attracts the cat or dog back to the same spot(s)). You'll love it because it has a very faint, fresh odor that obliterates that horrible cat pee smell, and even better - it obliterates it for your cat too *G*.