My girlfriend has a cat that is a complete 'fraidy cat. If I’m in the room, the cat runs out like I’m trying to kill her.
Anyways, the cat has toilet issues. It doesn’t clean its own butthole very vigorously (it’s not a long haired cat either) so it tends to hold Klingons. This morning, I woke to an inch-long nugget on the kitchen floor. This isn’t the first time, either. It’s actually the second time in roughly a week and a half she’s made a deposit outside of the box. She also likes to pee outside of the litter box. Not on the carpet or anything, but outside of the litter box. She likes to stretch out and pee out of bounds.
Regarding the first thing, don’t mother cats tend to tongue their kittens’ turd cutters as a way to stimulate them to beam down a Shatner? If that’s the case, could she have needed more anal attention when she was a kitten? I told my girlfriend to get in there and start licking, but for some reason, she balked. Is there a way to address these issues? She’s a stubborn little thing, too. The litterbox used to be covered, but apparently she disliked that and decided to make a liquid deposit wherever she wanted.
So, would squirting her with extreme prejudice be a good start? Cover the litterbox again and hose the little brat down when she craps on something? The litterbox is cleaned every morning and night (two cats, by the way. The other cat is cool with the world) so it’s probably not a cleanliness issue of hers.
She also tends to visit the litterbox when nobody is looking, which makes catching her harder to do. Again, if I’m in the room, the cat bolts.
Use of a little smear of butter has often been recommended to improve a cat’s grooming habits. Not sure how valid that is, but as long as you don’t use too much i’m sure it wouldn’t hurt…
Is this a new behavior, or something she’s always done? If it’s a new thing, you might want to get her checked out by a vet to see if there’s something physically wrong. Cats might avoid the litter box if they are, for example, having pain when they eliminate- they associate the pain with the litter box, and avoid it.
Again, is this a new behavior?
Does she do this in many different places, or in one or a few places? If it’s only a few places, the problem might be that you’re not cleaning up well enough when it happens. If a cat smells cat pee somewhere, it will think that that is an appropriate place to pee. I would recommend a thorough cleaning ASAP after the accident with a product like Nature’s Miracle that is specifically designed to get pet waste smells out.
Probably not. Cats are smart enough to know that, if you squirt them for doing something, that means they shouldn’t do it when you are looking. That might be OK for some behaviors- for example, I don’t want my cats on the dining room table, but I’m most concerned with their getting on the table while we are eating- it’s not such a huge deal if they do it when we’re not home. Squirting worked well for getting rid of that behavior. For litter box avoidance… that’s worse if you don’t see it happen, so that wouldn’t work so well.
Is kitty over weight? How old is she? Both of these could be the reason she isn’t grooming herself as well.
As for why she is going outside the box, there could be a lot of reasons.
First thing to check is the medical side. If she has a bladder infection, or is constipated, she might be associating the litter box with pain, and therefore not using it. A trip to the vet is warranted. And be prepared for the vet to want to do diagnostics.
Next thing to check is the litter box itself. Just because it’s clean enough that you would use it doesn’t mean kitty agrees. Get another litter box and set it up on the opposite side of the house from the first one. A closet usually works well for scaredy kitties. This tactic has the dual advantage of covering a cleanliness problem and a territorial problem with the other kitty.
It could also be the litter. What kind do you use? Some cats have incredibly strong preferences. If you are using clay, try corn. If you are using pelleted wheat or newspaper, try clay. Try something that isn’t heavily scented. You get the idea.
Gotcha. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter on her turd cutter, then. Should we use the spray or the spread? (Only half kidding.)
Both cats seem to be cool with going in the same box still. The problem seems to be with Emmy’s (the cool cat) penchant for stretching out when she pees. She likes to get up on the lip of the box with her front paws and pee.
That’s exactly what I figured with the spraying. I figured that she’d just do it when we’re sleeping. Her toilet issues aren’t new issues from what I gather. The girlfriend just never really addressed them and I was wondering if they’re even addressable.
Also, the cat has been checked up by the vet. She’s got an oil change recently and everything!
Emmy (pics to come later) isn’t overweight. She’s just your average cat. Medically she’s fine. She had a vet appointment under a month ago and she’s been doing this for a long longer than just a month.
I thought it might have been litterbox, so every time I clean the laundry room, I clean the litterbox out real good.
I have another kind of litter to try after this current floor of litter is rendered useless. I thought about that as well.
Our newest cat came to litter boxes late in life and still does not quite grasp the concept. She likes them, especially not having to crap in blizzards at 12 below, but they are a bit advanced for her. We have covered ones and her current problem is the idea that if her front end is in (and all four feet are touching sand), it doesn’t necessarily mean all of her is in. More than once we see this eruption of fecal matter from the enclosure of the litter box. She then turns scratches the sand and exits proudly having used the facilities.
Some cats seem to like a stance like this, with their feet on a solid surface rather than the litter. You can get double litter boxes (look rather like a double sink) which let them stretch like this but still pee in the box. But the double ones are more expensive and may be hard to find. You might try getting 2 litter boxes, and linking them together with duct tape, and see how she likes that. Or just try getting a bigger (longer) litter box, so she can stretch out to pee.
The area in which the litterbox lies (right by the sink at the entrance from the garage) doesn’t have enough room for two litterboxes. I was even contemplating something like contact paper to act like a funnel.
I don’t see moving the litterbox as being problematic, but to another spot, if she decides to pee outside of the box, then she’s hitting carpet instead of linoleum.
Go buy a cheap lidded storage container. It needs to be taller and longer than the cat and preferably taller and longer than the other litter box. Cut* an entrance hole near the top of the box, probably about a foot up from the bottom. Make the hole big enough for the cat to enter (if your other litter box is covered make the entrance about the same size). You can cut part of the entrance into the top lid if you want to keep the box covered. If the entrance is high enough the cat will have to go all the way in to eliminate and nothing should spill out.
I’ve been experimenting with a couple of these containers for litter boxes because litter boxes never seem big enough, they leak out the sides if the cat pees again the cover and the cats can kick litter or poop or pee out the entrance. My first one I didn’t make the hole high enough up so they can still kick litter and other things out the front. I made another with a hole in the lid but only a couple of my daintier cats seem comfortable using that one. So I think the entrance has to be higher. I bought another box to try another version with a higher entrance.
*You can cut the plastic with a hand saw, reciprocating saw or dremel. Be sure to wear goggles because the power tools will spit hot plastic on you.
This may not solve the poop issue but it should help with the peeing outside the box.
Apropos of nothing, I’ve come into possession of a young female who likes to go potty the same time as daddy. Except when daddy is sitting on the pot, little girl-cat finds the bath-mat more than suitable, instead of the covered litter-box two feet away.
The Booda Cleanstep litter box is your friend. One of our cats had trouble with this concept despite having been using litter boxes for his whole life, but having to get all the way inside and turn around before he was in the sand made a big difference. It’s also harder for him to fling sand across the room.
One of my cats is on the way back from the vet this afternoon because of this very issue. I hope its all cured up or it will be having a “living in the cold ass garage” issue pretty quick.
Right. Unless it’s medical, the two biggest reason for cat box issues are not being clean enough (which the OP claims to be handled) and territory/dominence issues with multiple cats.
An update: We buttered her ass. She didn’t love it, but it did what it was supposed to do. She still has Klingons, so we have to start doing it more to teach her. She obviously needs to learn, so we need to do it more often.
We just got a bigger storange container for a litterbox, so we’ll see if she can keep it in the park.
She peed on a pile of blankets in the corner, so it’s officially the War Against Emmy. She did it rght in front of us, but we didn’t realize what she was doing. She might be taking up to peeing in places on the carpet in which she has before. The carpet is vacuumed and shampooed tomorrow and Nature’s Miracle wil be bought.
