Cat suddenly peeing on the bed but the both doctors say he's fine
Hey everyone,
We have two male cats at home, they are brothers and both 6 years old. They are Siamese mixes :)
(I’m writing this post for my brother because I want to help both him and the cat.)
One of our cats occasionally pees outside the litter box, but the pattern behind it is extremely confusing. About 3.5 years ago he had a bladder infection with a very high urine pH level, frequent urination and loud meowing. However, the current behavior feels completely different from back then.
Otherwise, he behaves completely normally. He eats normally, plays a lot, cuddles and does not seem apathetic or visibly sick. He also does not show typical symptoms like constantly visiting the litter box or obvious signs of pain.
What we have noticed though is that the whole situation seems to be strongly connected to my brother, who is his main person. My brother works shifts, so his routines are often inconsistent. The cat frequently starts meowing as soon as my brother comes home, follows him around a lot and generally seems very emotionally attached to him. This is much less the case with my parents. He also spends time with them, and my parents play with both cats and feed them, but compared to my brother the bond seems much stronger.
The incidents mostly happen on my brother’s bed, around his belongings or during sleeping/feeding situations.
For example, today my brother came home from work, the cat immediately became very restless and meowed a lot. Shortly after that, he peed into a shopping basket in the stairway.
About three weeks ago there was also a situation where my brother slept together with him in bed. My brother only came home around midnight and usually by that time both cats are already asleep, since their normal sleeping routine is around 10–10:30 PM. The cat woke up, cuddled with him for a bit, then started meowing and peed on the bed. According to my brother, the cat was cuddling up to him like he normally does and seemed very affectionate.
(My personal feeling is that the missing routines caused by shift work might be part of the problem, since my brother used to still be in school not too long ago and there was much more structure/routine back then.)
We already went to the vet and nothing unusual was found. According to the vet everything looks normal. We also use enzyme cleaner, have multiple litter boxes and try not to punish or yell at him.
At this point I honestly wonder if this sounds more like stress, insecurity, an extremely strong attachment to one person or maybe some kind of stress-related bladder issue.
Has anyone experienced something similar, especially when the behavior seemed heavily connected to one specific person?
Maybe you also have some tips because we honestly feel pretty overwhelmed right now.