Last night one of the cats peed on the bed that nephew was using when he was here. The pee was on top of the blanket and luckily it did not soak through to the mattress but it sure did create a big stink. This is the first incident of cat marking/peeing we've ever had. Dh and I are trying to figure out which of the cats did it. Here are the suspects:
Suspect 1: Jenny
Resident female cat (been with us 2.5 yrs), spayed, currently asserting dominance with new neutered male cat introduced into the household about a month ago. Last couple of nights she has been more dominant with male cat and last night she chased him down the hall when he might have been going to the garage to use his litter box. Dh saw this happen. Dh thinks Max then used the bed to relieve himself out of necessity.
However, when nephew came to stay with us, Jenny was put out. She does not like strangers. She started to warm up to him, able to be in the house and in the same room as him until one night when she went into his room while he was in the bathroom. He came back and closed the door, locking her inside. She meowed loudly for a long time but he assumed she was in the hall and did nothing. We thought she was doing her usual loud meowing and ignored her. Some time later, nephew turned on the lights to do something in his room and saw her by the door and he let her out. After that, she would not come in the house except to eat. Nephew also liked to use the island stools to eat his meals, which is Jenny's favorite spot in the house. When she would come in to eat, she would see him there and turn around and run out.
A couple of days after nephew left, Jenny started coming back in the house and sleeping on the couch, playing on her favorite stools and generally being a house cat again. I think that she's the one who marked the bed to get nephew's scent out of it. Nephew stayed in the room with all windows and doors closed for almost 3 weeks, during a heat wave, without A/C. He spent almost 24 hrs a day in the room, on the bed, using his laptop and phone.
Suspect 2: Max
New family member, male, neutered, appx 1-2 yrs old. Very submissive, very quiet. Has shown no dominance whatsoever even when Jenny hisses a him and stalks him. However, he did use one of our plant pots as a toilet one day when he couldn't get to his litter box. He meowed to go out but we thought he was just saying hi so we ignored him. So he went to a big pot in the corner and relieved himself. He had a bit of diarrhea so his need was urgent.
Last night, dh was watching tv and saw Max walking towards the garage door and tv room. Maybe he was going to the garage to use his box, although he'd been out there all evening with the garage door open and had just come in less than 10 minutes ago. He was chased back by Jenny who was on the floor in front of the garage door and he fled down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Dh thinks he relieved himself on the bed out of necessity and that he chose this room because it's the one furthest from the room in which he sleeps. However, I would think that if he needed to relieve himself he would have done it in the closet or somewhere more private and secluded, not smack on the middle of the bed.
Max has been sleeping on my bed for the past week or so, both during the day and at night. Some days he sleeps in a little alcove in the garage. Last night, sometime after the Jenny chase, he left and has not come back today. I leave the screen patio door open a crack for Jenny because she likes to go in and out at night and will meow loudly until we let her.
When I took the soiled blanket to the garage to wash it Jenny was on the floor between the washer and dh's car and ran under the car, which she would not normally do.
Any ideas on who the culprit might be? And maybe how we can nip it?
p.s. we know it wasn't one of the dogs because they were leashed and in their beds in my room the whole night.
p.p.s. the smell of the urine did soak through to the mattress although there is no visible stain. We have the mattress outside to air it in the sun. Is it possible to get cat urine smell out of a mattress or should we just give up on it and toss it?