I know several Dopers here are involved in rescue/adoptions and when I volunteered at a shelter I remember seeing lots of cats curling up in a loaf in their own litter boxes. Sometimes, it made sense - the confines of a small solitary cage, for example. But sometimes it was cats in one of those multi-cat open rooms you can walk into, and it never made any sense to me at all - why there?!?
So… our big male Maine Coonhas, ah, dominance issues. In that, he genuinely believes he owns the joint, and any displeasure on his part is shown by pissing on things. (Our bathmat, in particular. He has a vendetta against that thing, or something.) We’ve been dealing with this for years, off and on, but we can’t just keep on like this.
We’re trying something new. We borrowed a big-ass crate, and put into it a litter box (you see where this is going … ?) a food and a water bowl, and a towel for him to sleep on. His favorite spot by the window has towels on it, so I know he doesn’t mind the texture of terrycloth or whatever. I even tried taking the towel out; he has long, thick fur, plus he has this weird-o habit of sleeping on top of the most uncomfortable-looking surface he can find. I mean it: put down a soft kitty bed, and a pair of high-top steel-toe boots, and he’ll stretch across the boots with this “Aaaaahhhh… nice and lumpy!” look on his face. (Cats is Teh Weird, I know.)
We don’t treat him being crated as punishment, and he doesn’t seem to take it as such. It’s just a matter-of-fact “this is where Al goes now” when we’re going to sleep, or both of us will be gone for the day. This morning he went in on his own to eat his breakfast, and didn’t make a peep when I closed the door behind him. (He is the most vocal cat I’ve ever known, so he WILL tell you what he’s thinking or what he wants, in what sounds eerily like human language sometimes.)
But … he keeps snoozing in the litter box. Not on the bare floor, not on a towel. His fur STINKS of piss. So when we’re home and we’ve been usually let him out, and he gets to hop up on the couch and watch TV with us … now I don’t want to let him do that. I don’t want to have to wash him every day, either.
Any ideas at all? I don’t know how to keep the litter box available for him to pee & poop in but not to sleep in… I thought of putting in a couple of big, corner-y rocks but … again, he looooves to sleep on what looks to you and me like the most uncomfortable place possible, so I’m afraid that might actually encourage him.