Old cat won't stop urinating...

[Aruba417]

I hope you can help me. I have a 17 year old cat that won't stop urinating outside the litterbox. She makes it there about 50% of the time...but she goes about 3 or 4 times a day on the couch, the floor, etc. She never did this until about 6 months ago. I took her to the vet about 3 months ago and he says its just a sign of her kidneys shutting down (she tested neg for diabetes, etc). He says she doesn't appear to be suffering, and there's really not much he can do for her. She's blind (which he thinks is due to high blood pressure), but she gets around. She still eats...but she's thin. She still grooms herself and purrs and seems happy enough...so I wouldn't feel right having her put down. But is there any kind of meds that she could get on to keep from going so much??? Or anything that I could do for her? I also don't want to keep her confined to one room. But we all know how nasty cat urine is...I guess that's another question: is there really ANYTHING that can take out the smell of cat urine? Thank you!

[April2]

I'm kind of going through the same thing right now with my cat. I can tell you what my vet recommended and I guess it works for some cats but hasn't so much with mine. It's worth a shot, though. My vet told me to try Feliway. It's something you stick in your outlet that's supposed to send out something in the air that calms the cats and helps with urine marking. I tried it and it didn't work for me but my vet said it worked with her cat. She also recommended "Kitty Prozak" for my cat and said it could help with the peeing because she thinks she's a stressed out kitty. Crazy, huh? But I'm trying it. So far, no luck. We also bought the "Natures Miracle" from Petsmart. It's a pet enzyme that's supposed to help with the smell. You clean the area and then spray this on. There's also something called "Urine B Gone" which I heard of but haven't tried yet. Rent a carpet cleaner and get the cleaning solution that has the pet enzyme in it to help neutralize the urine odor.
You're right, cat pee smell is awful. I'm about sick because our cat has practically ruined our carpet now in our downstairs finished basement and it was fairly new, nice carpet. We can't really afford to replace it at this point but it will have to be replaced, I'm sure.
At least your cat is quite a bit older than mine. 17 is a pretty good age for a cat (mine's almost 11). I don't like the idea of having to put mine down but I can't continue to live like this either. I will go as long as I can. I hope some of my suggestions work for you. I wish you the best. I hope it all works out for you. God bless.

[Aruba417]

Thanks so much for the suggestions. We tried all those cleaning supplies - LOL. Thankfully, my mom has tile...it's just the couch that my cat pees all over. Which is sick because of course we all sit on the couch. I might ask my vet about the Kitty Prozac! Or look for the Feliway! Thanks again so much! And good luck with your kitty, too!