blind kitten trying to pee on soft things?
this lovely girl is named kira! my fiancée and i welcomed her into our home a month ago, when she was about two months old. she is now three months old! she was found on the street with one underdeveloped eye and one severely infected eye. it's likely that she was never able to see out of both eyes, and has been mostly blind for the majority of her life. she's adapting super well to having no eyes- she's a great echolocator! she was slowly introduced to a household of three other special needs cats, all male: one with a neurological condition (5 yrs), and two twin boys (1 yr) who each have one eye also due to being found on the street with eye infections.
she has been cleared of everything by two vets (no worms, parasites, other illnesses etc) and receives her last round of vaccines in two weeks. i believe it's one last FVRCP booster, rabies, and FeLV booster. she recovered from a small upper respiratory infection with the help of antibiotics within the first few days of being home, while she was quarantined from the other cats. she stayed on the antibiotics for the full dose but has recovered great!
the only problem we are encountering with her is that she likes to pee on soft things: beds, towels, laundry, pillows. when placed inside the litter box, she is great and goes pee and poop. she is not averse to the litter (currently a mix of arm & hammer multi cat and cat attract) and doesn't mind using the litter box. but it seems that sometimes when she gets the urge to pee, she just searches for the closest soft thing (usually a sweater or pillow on the ground, currently she goes to the christmas tree skirt) and digs around for a little bit before peeing there.
it doesn't seem to be coming from retaliation as she's totally happy and assimilated in with the other cats now, and the problem started before she was introduced to the other cats. it doesn't seem to be health related as the vet cleared her for everything, we had her check for a UTI and she said that kira is healthy aside from having no eyes. it really seems to be born of convenience- if she needs to pee NOW, she's going to find the closest soft thing and pee now. we have litter boxes in each room for this reason but sometimes it seems like she just doesn't want to try to go to the box and wants to go pee.
for this reason i've been watching her closely and putting her inside the litter box whenever she starts sniffing and pawing around for a spot to pee (it's very noticeable) but i do work fulltime and can't watch her constantly. my fiancée is usually home when i'm not and we're able to detect her before she pees on anything, but we're hoping to train her out of this problem or fix it somehow. currently all the things she's peed on have been washed on hot with laundry sanitizer after being doused in enzyme cleaner so i know there aren't lingering smells that she's going back to to try to pee on, she's just looking for soft stuff to pee on.
any suggestions? litter change maybe? or any products that deter peeing in certain spots? we've tried to keep the house clean but the christmas tree skirt needs to stay on and there are still rugs and decorative pillows throughout our house for her to pee on. and our entire house is carpet outside kitchen/bathrooms so that doesn't help. is there a better way of litter box training her?