Can cats ever scent-mark lying down?

[Kokapetl]

Hello there,

Can anyone tell me if it's possible for cats to scent-mark sitting and/or lying down? My cat is a male neutered 10-year-old Birman.

The thing is, for a long time, during times of stress, my cat leaves small patches of urine on my bed, which I always thought was scent-marking – he only does it when he's stressed (and I know for definite that he is stressed and what's causing it), and 99% of the time, he only does it to my bed, like he specifically wants to mark it as belonging to him. He almost never does it to his beds.

But I read today that cats get into a specific standing position to scent-mark. Can they never scent-mark lying down? Something has stressed my cat out, and he's just started leaving the patches of urine again. However, it's always on flat surfaces, like my bed. Is there any chance he's scent-marking, or has he got some kind of stress-related incontinence?

I'd be really grateful if someone could help me with this question – I don't think I'll be able to get him to the vets for the next few days because I can't drive at the moment, and I'm really freaking out because of all the serious stuff that can cause feline incontinence.

Thanks so much!

[Crewella]

Sorry, I've not experience cats scent marking lying down. Is he peeing OK otherwise?

[Kokapetl]

Sorry, I've not experience cats scent marking lying down. Is he peeing OK otherwise?

Thanks for your reply. His peeing is absolutely fine -- perfectly ordinary amounts of urine with no straining or anything. Apart from the patches of urine in my bed, his behaviour and his appearance are totally and completely normal.

[Crewella]

OK, so he's not suffering from cystitis or a UTI by the sound of it. If there are no other signs of trouble I guess it's possible he's scent marking - hopefully one of the other posters will have more experience of this.

I wish him well.

[Janey]

Hi and welcome. I fostered a young cat who was rescued from a bad situation with 6 other cats and he did this in our room in various places. We couldn’t get to the bottom of this but it turned out once he was homed and allowed to go out this stopped, so that would have been due to stress.

[MarySkater]

I can't help with the scent-marking issue, but this may be useful on the practical side. I once had a very affectionate cat who always slept on my bed. In his last illness, he suffered from nasty vomiting, which led to a very messy bed. I started buying waterproof mattress covers. They are shaped like fitted sheets, so I had to cut off the elastic edging, but having done that, I could spread them over the top of my bedding. That kept the mess off my duvet, and it was a lot easier to put a mattress cover through the washing machine than to have to change a duvet cover every time.

If your cat is territory-marking, then maybe he'd be more comfortable if you left his scent on the bed. But I would find it easier to deal with if the "smelly bits" were limited to a throw-over cover which could be changed easily. Good luck,

Mary

[Kokapetl]

Crewella – thank you. As it happened, my sister was able to drive he and I over to the vets on Monday, and thankfully the vet didn't think it was serious, but asked for a urine sample (which has now also been delivered). So fingers crossed it won't be anything too serious!

Janey – thank you very much; that's very interesting. When he does it, it does really seem to coincide with periods when he's stressed for any reason, so I do suspect it might be behavioural.

Mary – great minds! I don't know what I'd do without waterproof covers – I even have waterproof pillow cases so he can get on the pillows still. I'm very sorry to hear about your cat, though – it doesn't matter how many you've had, or how old they are, losing a pet never gets any easier.

[Kokapetl]

Thank you very much for the info, Bahdja. We only have the one cat at the moment (we had several rescue cats older than my Birman, but they've all died, and we're hesitant to get another in case they don't get on with my Birman), and as for his catlit, I scoop out whatever he's done when he uses it, and change it entirely every few days – but it's very helpful to know this about removing the smell, which is always difficult!

[meriad]

As a matter of interest do you know what is causing the stress for him? Is there any way that can be addressed?

also, do you know if he's asleep when he leaves the patches or have you actually seen him do it when he's awake - my gut is telling me that it's incontinence vs anything else.