Okay…bed-peeing is really getting to be an issue.

[Binkles]

It doesn’t happen every night, but about once every other night or so, Little-Bit will pee on the bed.

-It’s always in roughly the same spot, and it’s the only place she pees outside of her litterbox.

-It is combined with poops. She leaves me a BUNCH of little poop presents on my bed every night, which is fine in and of itself -but every other night or so, it’s accompanied by the pee..

-It is accompanied by hay. I do still leave hay out on my bed for her because my bed is where she spends most of her time and I want her to have ample access to it.

-She does not pee around her other hay feeding stations. (There are two of them..) ><''

-She does pee and poop in her litterbox…in addition to my bed.

-I don’t think that it’s urine smell related; I’ve scrubbed my mattress down with alcohol, water, and vinegar like no tomorrow AND I have implemented a waterproof vinyl zipper mattress pad. So I don’t think that she’s smelling any urine smell from past accidents and identifying my bed as a litterbox.

-I empty her litterbox every day, so it’s not that she feels her litterbox is too full/ unsanitary.

-It only happens late at night, usually within two or three hours -sometimes closer- of my going to bed…

So I’m a little exhaspirated. I have NO idea why she insists on doing this…

Well…I do have a few theories..

1.) She has just grown to associate the smell of my laundry detergeant with potty time.

or

2.) (Could this be possible..?) As I said…it does only happen right before bed time….and my bed IS her lounging spot when I’m awake..

…could she possibly be objecting to the fact that I sleep in her lounging spot?

I most certainly don’t ban her from the bed while I am sleeping, but for some reason she does prefer to sleep by herself -which is currently underneath the bed at the foot next to her secondary hay feeding station.

[Sarita]

It sounds like it has become a habit.

If it only happens right before bedtime – you should try and put her in her box.

[bunnytowne]

Buns usually pee on the bed.  It smells like us and they want their scent up there too.  It is usually a problem with most buns.  I wouldn’t put the hay up there either.  For that may be encouraging her to wee on your bed.  They like to do their business in the litterbox with hay in it.

Or can you put a litterbox up there and see if that works. 

You may just end up having to ban her from your bed. Unfortuantely.

[bunnytowne]

OH yeah some people cover their bed with a shower curtain to discourage peeing on the bed.  That might work.

[MimzMum]

Is it possible her box is TOO clean and she is more used to the smell of the bed directing her to a potential pee spot? I know you said there’s no urine smell, but there may not be any in the box either and her homing device is confused thinking that the fresh laundered smell of the bedding may be where she is supposed to go? (I know Mimzy -sometimes Pip too- tends to tip his box when I’ve cleaned it too well and them he’ll pee on the floor to let me know I have taken away too much scent.)

Maybe try laundering a piece of an old towel with the same soap you use on your bed and tuck that into the box? Just to train her. Then slowly take the towel away as she (hopefully) uses her box instead of your bed? Then maybe change soap brands for your bed so it doesn’t smell like the towel piece in the litter box?

Okay, that’s confusing. >.< But just a thought. I think you should try to discourage her from the pooping too if you can, that may just be fueling the fire for the peeing.

Does she still sleep on your bed all night?

[Binkles]

She rarely sleeps on my bed when I’m in it. She may lounge for brief periods, but if I’m sleeping (and not just lounging or reading a book, aka ‘bother-mommy-time’) I’ve never seen her stay for a period of maybe about…20 minutes at the max.

I don’t think it’s TOO clean. When I dump out the old litter, I always leave that bottom layer that sticks so she can identify where her potty is and just pile 2-3 inches of aspen on top of that. Actually…it’s been quite some time since I’ve actually REALLY thoroughly cleaned it out -more than just dumping. Think I’ll give it a good thorough clean tomorrow, thank you for reminding me.  Though I don’t think that’s the problem; as I said, she definitely uses her litterbox -MOST of the time. :/

She actually just got through a period of 3-4 days without peeing on my bed. I was beginning to think that perhaps it was over, and then last night…big orange spot on my bed!  I was so happy..

I think what I am going to do is try to ‘reset’ her mind frame. Since she does only do it late at night, I’m going to continue allowing her access to my bed all day and most of the night but start blocking it off at around 10:00pm until I go to bed. Remember, she has that condo-bed setup, so all I have to do is close that door at the top if I don’t want her on my bed. (She has never jumped onto my bed from the floor before; she finds that her condo provides a much simpler route, so I doubt she’d try jumping now.)

I’ll do this for about a week or ten days-ish and then stop blocking it off, see if it helps revert her thinking patterns. If not, I’ll start over and try it for two weeks, etc.

[Author]

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