Quote:
Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer
Poor Luna has a UTI...
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We have had many cats over the years (3 at the moment) and have had several that have suffered from urinary tract disease (usually referred to as FLUTD Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease) and so gained quite a bit of experience with resolving it. Apologies if you know most of the following but it is what we have found to always work.
Given that there is blood in your cat's urine then I would strongly suspect FLUTD rather than just some developed habit. There are a number of causes of the disease but in the main it is crystal precipitation in the urethra or stress (which can induce the precipitation; over grooming if it occurs is a reliable sign of stress). Unless it has been recurrent, infection is an unlikely cause as cat urine is very concentrated (cats are very efficient in preserving water) making it not a good habitat for bacteria, it is this concentration that leads to the precipitation of crystals which blocks and irritates, and then damages the urethra causing pain when urinating. This means that the presence of blood is almost always due to bleeding and not infection.
Affected cats will try different places to urinate as they associate the place they do it with the pain rather than the process itself, so they will try different places and often avoid their tray. All our cats soon get to know "No" and "Down" and respond to those words even when spoken at a normal voice level so if an affected cat is caught in the act away from the litter tray we find that a firm "No" and being carried to the litter tray makes them associate the new place with discomfort.
Vets used to treat it with an antibiotic and prescribe a low mineral food (usually referred to as a low struvite food). As far as I know use of antibiotics (unless there is actually bacterial infection present) is often now recognized as being a waste of time. Low struvite diets can be expensive. What vets now do for treatment (other than prescribe a low struvite diet) I do not know as we find we can resolve the problem ourselves.
Long ago we had a male cat who developed FLUTD, probably stress related, and it was recurrent resulting in episodes of trips to the vet with him. However, on one occasion our normal vet was away and he had a locum there who just said make the cat drink as much as possible. Counterintuitive, but it seems it works because it reduces the urine concentration and crystals and mucus dissolve and flush away. I asked the vet what is the best drink to give as it is impossible to get cats to drink more water to which he replied "Anything, whatever he will drink, gin if necessary but milk is fine" :-).
So what we do is give milk for the affected cat to drink at each meal as they have always liked milk (we break all our cats daily food allowance into 3 meals a day, so 3 lots of milk). It can be a problem in a multiple cat household because they will all get into it. It has always worked and that quite quickly. Once cured they seem to get into the habit of drinking and start taking in enough water but we normally keep the milk up for a week or two after the cat is back to normal.
It is said that cats cannot tolerate milk but we have never come across one that cannot, so for us cows milk has always been fine. What many cats will not like is water that does not look perfectly clean, even a small speck of food fallen into it from their face or a hair floating in the water may make them reduce their water intake. We find also that they drink more water if they have a deep wide bowl, and always kept topped up as they may not like to get their faces deep into a bowl (maybe they associate deep water with cleanliness and shallow with puddles?).
When the cat has the disease it is important to keep a lookout that the cat does not suffer a complete blockage - if the cat gets into obvious continuous pain then it needs to get to a vet quickly. Vets can normally relieve the cat by gently squeezing the bladder.
I hope you get the problem sorted quickly as it can be pretty trying for both the cat and the household.