Cats · by Hugo Martin · 2026-09-27

13yo suddenly peeing right beside the litter box at night only?

Daytime is normal. Around 2-5am she uses the box for poop but pees on the mat or right next to it. Bloodwork six weeks ago was okay except mild arthritis. We added a second box downstairs because she hates stairs now. Anybody have this happen where it was pain and not a UTI? Vet appt is Tuesday unless she gets worse.

22 sparks · 8 comments

Comments

Mariam Said · 8 likes

Arthritis. 10000% arthritis in our case. We switched from a deep storage tote to a cut-down senior box and it stopped within a week.

Hugo Martin · 2 likes

Did you cut the entry on one side? I'm about to go buy a cheap bin tomorrow.

Minh Nguyen · 1 likes

Yep. One low side, puppy pad underneath, ugly but effective.

Daniel Kiptoo · 7 likes

Could also be the mat texture. Some cats decide the soft thing is the bathroom now lol

Chinedu Adeyemi · 6 likes

Still ask the vet for a urine sample. my guy had "perfect bloodwork" and still had crystals.

Jack Taylor · 2 likes

Night only makes me think she waits too long while sleeping and then panics when she gets there.

Hamza Malik · 0 likes

Tuesday is reasonable if she's otherwise acting normal. if she strains or keeps going in and out then ER, don't wait

Rafael Almeida · 0 likes

My old girl did that when squatting got uncomfortable. lower sided box fixed 80% of it.