Canberra Cat Vet Blog

Cats pass blood in the urine for many different reasons. Older cats with kidney or bladder disease are prone to urinary tract infections. In younger cats it can be a sign of stress or anxiety. If a male cat is having trouble passing his urine or is passing blood it is an emergency and you should call us immediately.

A urine sample and a chat with the person who spends the most time with the cat is essential to working out what the root cause of the problem is. Often we take the sample in the consult room. Sometimes the cat has to stay in hospital (like Leila above) until she builds up enough urine for us to sample.

Once we have the urine we check it with a diagnostic stick and then stain it so we can see any cells, crystals or bacteria under the microscope. We can then target the problem with the best treatment and help you prevent it happening again.

Are the cats in your household stressed by each other? 

In their natural state cats live with their relatives - their mothers, siblings and offspring. But we expect them to live in close quarters with total strangers and then wonder why they mark indoors, have bladder problems and overgroom - all signs of stress.

You know your cats consider each other family if they sleep together and groom each other, paying particular attention to each other’s heads. When all the cats in your household think of each other as family stress levels are low. 

More often in multi-cat households each cat considers the other as just another tenant of the house and would rather not share dining, toilet and rest areas. When forced to share tension levels between the cats will rise and fall. Occasionally we see outright aggression between housemates. Sometimes the only sign is the occasional spray of urine up the curtain or recurrent cystitis (inflammation of the bladder).

Check out your cats’ sleeping arrangements. If they are sleeping separately and not grooming each other with complete ease then make sure you have multiple resources available so that each ‘family’ can eat, drink and toilet in private. If you have three cats who do not groom each other then you will need feeding and water bowls, and a litter tray in three separate areas.