Day 324
We have learned in some unpleasant ways that cats can be resistant to change. With an entire first floor remodel lasting many, many months, we inadvertently caused stress to our cats. They let us know.
They didn't scratch. They didn't hiss. They didn't run away. They didn’t bite. They did something that feels much, much worse. They peed.
Everywhere.
We tried to clean up the stench. We used cleaning material after cleaning material. We used air fresheners. We tried diffusers recommended by our veterinarian. We moved litter boxes. We even made new litter boxes. When we thought we had it figured out, they changed our mind. And we changed our carpets.
After trying some carpet cleaning ourselves, we realized we needed to bring in the professionals. We reached out to a local company we used when we were spiffing up the old place. When they came, they assessed the situation, gave us their recommendations, and got to work. They hooked up their fancy hoses, turned on their machine, and cleaned every carrot qe asked them to quickly and efficiently. When they left, the house smelled somewhat fresh and new. But that freshness soon deteriorated into a less than desirable but familiar stink. Our crafty kitties hadn't changed their behavior, just the location of their poor behavior.
Before you knew it, our friendly carpet cleaners were back. This time, they focused on different areas.
We decided to focus on a new tactic.
Medication. What started as a thirty day “let’s see how this works” attempt at solving this problem is now a full on daily, twice a day routine. Our veterani=arian mentioned she does the same thing for her cats and she kept them medicated for nearly three years before the issue resolved itself. As a kindergarten teacher, thank heavens I have experience herding cats.
Providing kitties daily medications is possibly as traumatizing for them as the remodel was, but at least it’s not as smelly. Most of the time.
We still have our accidents and we still go through plenty of cleaning supplies to help correct the issue. The areas are localized and we have seen (and more importantly, smelled) improvements, slowly but surely.
