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How to Stop a Cat From Peeing on the Couch?

When it comes to owning and caring for cats, there are going to be a lot of new tasks that you need to begin paying attention to, especially if you have never owned a cat before. For instance, if you are used to owning cats, then you have a good idea about how finicky they can be, what to expect, and the most efficient way to deal with the problem, since cats tend to be about as far from straightforward as possible. If you have never owned a cat before, you may not realize that common signs of disobedience are often far more deep-rooted than not obeying the rules that have been set up for them, and that more often than not, a cat who is being disobedient is a cat who is trying to send a message, one way or another.

This is due to the way that cats communicate in the wild and among themselves. Cats rely predominantly on nonverbal cues to inform other cats of various indicators. In fact, cats will meow only for humans, as they eventually come to learn that humans will not pick up on a lot of nonverbal signals, making a cat’s meow the equivalent of shouting to get one’s attention. With that fact in mind, some of the behavioral problems that some people will come across in cats may make more sense. This doesn’t justify them, of course, but when you understand what your cat is trying to tell you, you will have a much easier time trying to fix the problem in question.

Take, as an example, a cat that urinates in a place where people tend to congregate and enjoy themselves, such as on the couch. Nobody wants to sit down after a long day of work only to realize that the couch smells of cat urine. This behavior may come across as a sign of anger or of malicious intent, after all, the cat urinated where you spend time, so surely this cannot be a positive behavior. Again, while it is not okay to allow your cat peeing on couch, it shouldn’t be taken as an insult or as a sign that your cat dislikes you. In a strange, roundabout way, it is actually a sign that your cat considers you one of its own, as it is trying to send you a message in the same way it would send a message to another cat.

What Does it Mean?

If a cat peeing on furniture is not a sign that the cat is actively trying to sabotage you, then you may begin to wonder what your cat is trying to say. In the world of cats, when a cat urinates on something that isn’t their usual elimination location (such as the litter box), it is often sending a message and other cats will pick up on that message through the pheromones in the urine. Humans do not have noses capable of sensing and understanding this, so unfortunately, your cat’s earnest attempt to communicate with you fell a little bit short.

This leaves it up to you to try and decipher what your cat is trying to say. Once you know what your cat is trying to say to you, you will then have a much clearer idea on how you can remedy the problem so that you no longer live in worry that your cat is going to urinate on the couch again. When a cat that is already litter-trained begins urinating outside of its usual location, it will mean one of three things. It can mean that the cat is having a medical issue that needs to be addressed, or it can mean that your cat is extremely stressed out about something. Another meaning that this can have is that your cat is unhappy about its litter box and is telling you in its own way that it refuses to use the litter box.

Now that you know some of the most common reasons why you might come home to cat urine on your couch, you will now want to begin trying to piece together the puzzle so that you can figure out what is going on in your cat’s mind so you can put an end to this wholly unwanted behavior.

Ruling Out the Medicine

First things first, before you plan on correcting any behavioral issues, you will need to make sure that your cat does not have a health problem. No amount of behavioral training will resolve an issue that is rooted within your cat’s health. Typically, with health problems that affect a cat’s ability to make it to the litter box in time, the problem will surround a case of frequency and urgency. Your cat might yowl when it tries to use the litter box on its own and may mistakenly associate the pain of urination with using the litter box and believe that the box is what is causing the pain. This leads to your cat finding “safer” places to urinate, and there is nothing safer than the large couch that smells of its favorite person. If your cat is exhibiting any signs of distress when it uses the litter box, consider taking the cat in for an exam so that you can rule out the medicine.

Alleviating the Stress

In a strange and somewhat disgusting way, cats will try to comfort themselves through urination. This mechanism comes from the fact that when a cat is inside a den that smells of its family, it will feel more at peace than being out in the “open,” even if the open is just the extent of your home. Because of this, when a cat is feeling extreme stress due to its home environment, it may urinate in a place where its favorite person spends time so that it can have both its own scent and your scent. There could be a situation that may come across as stressful to the cat, such as getting new pets or a new family. In the end, when you stay on top of the problems that your cat is having, you can feel confident in knowing that you will be able to dissuade it from urinating on the couch ever again.