cats hate each other after years together and pee everywhere
we have four cats, all female, all spayed. all friendly to people and content for the most part. our first two, a tabby and a tortoiseshell (not siblings, about ten years old now) were adopted at the same time and get on ok. about three years later we got two new kittens, a calico and a ginger (same litter, about seven now).
anyway, our main problem is the tabby and the ginger HATE each other and always have. well the tabby kind of hates all the others but will tolerate them, but she’ll hiss and growl at the ginger if they happen to want to pass each other. like if they’re coming down a corridor in opposite directions she’ll freeze, crouch, puff up, yowl… a few years ago they had a bad fight and the ginger ended up with an infected wound. they have their own spaces to sleep, eat etc. usually the tabby stays downstairs and the ginger stays upstairs. she has a healthy fear of the tabby and won’t go near her if it can be helped which at least keeps the peace.
however lately they’ve both been peeing outside the litter box and it’s getting to be a real problem. were renovating our house so things are moving a lot, so i’m guessing it’s a combination of stress at the change, needing to claim territory from the other etc. no utis, diabetes etc as far as we know. what can we do to stop them peeing everywhere? renovations will be ongoing for a long time, they have plenty of litter boxes, private spaces, feliway etc. after years of hating each other is there a way to make them tolerate each other or is it too late? and how to discourage peeing when the whole house is being changed almost every day? should we get them to the vet and have them doped up with something while the work goes on? could be another year before everything settles.