When your cat urinates outside the litter box, it may all look the same: wet, smelly and a ruined carpet, but in order to solve the problems, it’s important to determine whether the behavior is spraying or indiscriminate urination. The two can have very different causes but you first have to know what to look for.

Spraying: When a cat sprays, he usually backs up to the object and sprays a stream of urine vertically at approximate nose height of other cats. Sprayed urine contains information about the cat so he wants to make it as accessible as possible. The types of areas he might target would be vertical ones such as walls, doors, curtains, windows, furniture, and even the clothes hanging in a closet.

Spraying tends to be a thin line across an object, with a small puddle on the floor or carpet as it runs down. Just to further confuse you, there are some cats who spray horizontally.  In that case the evidence would be a thin line of urine on the carpet, floor or bed.

Indiscriminate urination: This is done on horizontal objects. The most common targets are floors and carpets but a cat may urinate on a bed, cushions of furniture, a table, countertop, and even in sinks or bathtubs. The evidence will typically be a large puddle as opposed to the thin line. With indiscriminate urination, the urine quantity is usually larger as the cat will likely empty the bladder.

Go on the hunt. If your cat just recently sprayed or urinated, it’s easy to detect, but if it has since dried, you may not be able to distinguish spraying from indiscriminate urination without the aid of a blacklight. This special light causes urine to fluoresce in the dark.

For step-by-step help with litter box issues, refer to the book Starting from Scratch.

© 2009 Cat Behavior Associates, LLC