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This is true. My cat definitely pees in the sinks and bathtubs sometimes even when his litter is fresh. He poops in the litter with no issues, so I don't think
by JohnBooty 5y ago
This is true. My cat definitely pees in the sinks and bathtubs sometimes even when his litter is fresh. He poops in the litter with no issues, so I don't think it's a location problem. My best educated guess is that he simply finds the sinks more convenient than hiking down to the basement.
I have no doubts that he would pee in the toilet as well, but I can't leave the toilets open because we have dogs around.
(Although, now that I'm typing this, I suppose we could install cat-doors on the bathroom doors to let the cat in, and keep the dogs out...)
The sink/bathtub peeing is definitely gross and not ideal. But, not as gross as it sounds. He very very precisely pees directly down the drain. The smell is almost unnoticeable. So unnoticeable that it took us a lot of time to figure out he was even doing it, since he sometimes pees in the box as well. The main danger to him peeing in the sinks is that it will make it difficult for us to know if he has a blockage as we can not monitor his urine output.
(I am not "noseblind" to cat pee smell, as far as I can tell. The litterbox is in the basement and if I neglect to clean it on a given day and there is pee in there, I can smell it from upstairs. I've also asked trusted people like my brother to verify there's no cat pee smell in the house! He's not afraid to give me harsh opinions...)
- Nextgrid 5y ago> but I can't leave the toilets open because we have dogs around. As someone who's never been a dog owner, what's the problem with dogs and toilets?
- sethammons 5y agoDogs like to drink from toilet bowls. I've owned lots of dogs and it has never been an issue aside from one dog as a kid and we just accepted it
- Nextgrid 5y agoIf this is really a big problem I wonder if a brand could come up with a mix of Bitrex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium) and one of those deodorizers/fresheners you put hanging on the edge of the toilet bowl.
- JohnBooty 5y agoYeah. It's not exactly the end of the world if a dog drinks from the toilet bowl, but we're the type of dog owners who have a lot of physical contact with the dogs, so we'd definitely prefer them not to be dripping with toilet water. Especially if the cat doesn't learn to flush like Charles Mingus' cat.
- base698 5y agoMy cats also drink out of the toilets.
- marcellus23 5y agoI’ve never had a cat that didn’t drink out of the toilet.
- fullstop 5y agoMy cats will use the sinks or tubs if they have a UTI.
- stavros 5y agoWait wait, what's this about being noseblind? Is that a thing?
- JohnBooty 5y agoIt's a non-scientific term for a commonly-accepted phenomenon. Like a lot of other stimuli, the brain gets pretty used to filtering out constant background smells. A lot of pet owners don't seem to realize the pet smells in their house because they're so used to them. You see this a lot. People who live near smelly garbage dumps, in smelly cities, near farms that use a lot of manure, etc. They get used to it and stop noticing it. I think we all experience some level of this. Everybody's home has a distinctive (usually benign) smell. But you usually don't think about it or notice it. Until you step into somebody else's home.
- stavros 5y agoHmm yes, I've noticed that with my old house. Oddly, the only time I could smell it was when I put my shirt over my nose for a while (so I could smell the inside of my shirt) and then took it off. Hopefully my current flat doesn't smell like cat pee.
- JohnBooty 5y agoHopefully my current flat doesn't smell like cat pee. The only real solution may be brutally honest friends and family with decent senses of smell :-) But I mean, if you're emptying and changing the litter regularly I'm sure it's fine! At least that's what I tell myself if my brother hasn't been around lately...
- stavros 5y agoHahah, I'm pretty sensitive to it because it's in the same room as me, so hopefully I notice it.