We’ve always had trouble with this damn cat (which we inherited from my wife’s daughter after she married a man who’s allergic to cats). First of all, he’s never buried his stuff- he’s always left it steaming and stinking on top of the litter. And he has an annoying habit of sitting in the middle of the pan with his butt hanging off the edge which means his pan has to sit in the center of a five-foot wide mess control zone. And then when he developed diabetes it was accompanied by diarrhea, which can be controlled by pills- provided he doesn’t spit them out after we think he’s swallowed them.
But however wearily, this could all be coped with by the mess control routine I’d devised. But now, he’s finally crossed the line; he’s decided he doesn’t need to go in his pan anymore when he can just go on the rug. The first time was chalked up to an “accident”. Then when it happened again we though maybe it was that he was getting too old to take the stairs to the basement (he does limp along rather slowly these days). So we moved his [del]pan[/del] contamination zone to an unused back room. It seemed to be working. But now he’s dumped a big smelly goopy pile on the living room rug.
Poor cat. Have you talked to the vet about this latest development? For some reason, the latest set-up is uncomfortable for him. Sounds like he’s arthritic-it might be too difficult for him to get in and out of the litter box. He might also associate the squatting with pain. If you got him some pain relief for the arthritis, he might be more comfortable, and more inclined to go in or at least near the box.
I have two cats. I keep the litterbox very clean. It doesn’t matter. Every day one of the cats will shit on the floor. Just one lonely turd,screaming out to be noticed by the other cat. I’ve given up. I took all the rugs out of the bathroom and let the little piss ants play their game. I pick it up and disinfect the area. The cats have won,I’m just the lowly servant who feeds them
One of our cats was big – almost 20 pounds – barely fit in the box. We got a bigger box – not a litter box at all but a large plastic storage box – one intended to hold clothes and fit under a bed. It helped some because it was wider and the sides weren’t very high. Actually, it wasn’t much different from a pile of litter spread out on the floor.
Litter boxes aren’t designed well for big cats and older cats, IMHO. They’re just too damn small.
My cat is scared of his own poop. About once a week he is using the box when he suddenly jumps up like a bat out of hell and tears out of the room. He then usually drops a piece of poop then calms down. My best guess is that since he has long fur, he gets a clingon which whacks him in the butt when he is scratching the litter and terrifies him until it drops off. I guess it’s time to shave his butt.
Time to take him out to the edge of the yard, dig a small hole, pop him in the head with a 22, roll him into the hole, and cover him up. Probably take less time than it did to clean your rug and your foot.
A lot of cats don’t cover up their poop in the litter box – that’s not a behavior thing, that’s a dominance thing. As for not using the litterbox at all, take kitty to the vet. Either that or there’s something that’s bothering him about litterbox*? Maybe you need more than one.
*Piper-Grace has the occassional accident in the kitchen, because Maggie sometimes won’t let her in the litter box, poor thing. Do you have another cat, or a dog that might be intitimidating him? Did you change litter brands?
When my tiny little kitten, who had been living outside, came to live with me last August, the first time she used the box she jumped outside of it and looked at the poop, uncertain of what to do. I reached over, grabbed the scooper and pulled litter over the top of it. She has buried hers ever since.
I’d say that you might need to show them, but if the cat is older and has been doing this for a long time, they’re less likely to learn now.
I think some cats are just this way - we have three litter boxes lined up in a row for my idiot cat, and she still hangs her butt over the last one in the line and pees on the floor.
I had a 20-year old cat who was slowly dying. When he began to stick his ass out of the box and shit on the floor, cleaning up his mess was a small price to pay for all the companionship I got from him over the years.
We’ve got at least one who hangs her ass over the edge of the box, no matter how large the box is. We deal with it by putting the box in the middle of a small field of puppy pee pads. When she nails one, we pick it up, crap and all, and toss it. Way easier than decontaminating the floor day after day.
We also have one who has decided she pees in front of the closet door downstairs. Again, we’ve given up and started putting a pee pad there. Swap it out daily, no more mopping up puddles of cat piss.
Moral: Get a box of puppy training pads, deploy as needed.
ETA: With regard to the diabetes, talk to the vet about managing it with injectable insulin instead of the pills. You may get better control of the diabetes AND it’s actually way easier to stick a cat than to pill one (and I’ve never seen a cat spit out an injection).
