I work in a home office. At the other end of my office are the cat’s litter boxes. Not ideal, but this is where they have to be.
The cats, like all cats I’ve had, employ a complex ritual when approaching and entering their litter box. This ritual is the same whether I’ve just cleaned the 4 litter boxes or if they are in need of cleaning.
They step in, or put in a paw and move things around. Then they step in. They they kick and shuffle litter around until somehow, things seem acceptable. Then they do their thing. Then they kick litter up to cover their recently delivered gifts.
I haven’t watched a lot of feral cats do their thing but I’ve seen some and it seems to me that outdoor cats or feral cats lack this neurotic approach to their toilet habits.
Is it me, or are my cats just uniquely screwed up??
Mine have to inspect every little grain of litter before they take a shit in it. They also have to inspect their food before they eat it (the dry food, the wet food lasts about 0.00000003 seconds before they’ve sucked it down), and inspecting it means taking it out of the bowl and pushing it around on the floor.
Heh, you think that’s neurotic? My old lady cat (20), can’t seem to remember it’s the litter she wants to scrape. Everything else but get’s the machinations (sides of the box, floor, invisible litter molecules). Then out she steps la-la-la. :rolleyes:
Half of the time my cat paws at the wall instead of the litter before she goes.
And when she exists the litter box she seems to think she is in a race and darts out of the box and into the bedroom up onto the window ledge. Then she proudly meows as she obviously won the race since she is the only cat I have.
Our cats have all been marathon scratchers, but not always managing to get the litter over the cat waste. Our oldest, Midnight, used to scratch every surface of the litter box when she was younger – and we had a box with walls and a roof that cats could go into, so she scratched the roof. Clarence still scratches the high sides of the tall box. And they all scratch the newspapers the boxes sit on. Obsessively.
Dumbcat will go into some kind of trance while covering his mess, and go on scrape scrape scraping until we yell at him to stop.
Evilcat has modified his bathroom habits to coincide with the daily cleaning so that he and I are converging on the litterbox at the same moment. I then have to wait.
One of my cats, Oedipuss Rex, is very fastidious. If he doesn’t think the litterbox is clean enough for him, he stands on his back legs on the edges of the litterbox, and leans up against the wall on his front legs so he doesn’t have to step down inside to go. It looks a lot like he’s a perp, with arms and legs spread up against a wall, ready to be frisked by the cops. It’s hilarious.
He has also been known to tear the lid off the giant tub of cat litter and go in there, if the box is not suitably clean.
Also, when he thinks the box needs cleaned, he will toss one little ossified poop nugget out onto the litter-catching mat in front of the box. This is like a little, “Maid, Please Make Up Box” sign.
Then, when I do change the box, he immediately jumps in and forces himself to go. I have watched him in there, absolutely straining, desperate to be the first to poop in the clean box. Then, when he’s done, he flings clean litter around joyfully for 20 minutes or so.
mine will stand there and whine at me if he doesn’t think it’s clean enough to suit him. if i don’t move fast enough, he’ll come and stare holes in me until i get my lazy ass in gear and change the litter.
My first floor crapper is affectionately known as “the monkey room”, because my wife allowed me to have my way in ONE room in the house and then chose that one.
So, it’s done in monkey, which means that counting artwork, statues, and assorted things like the liquid soap dispenser and that, I have over 19 monkeys in the room. That’s counting the Curious George book.
My one cat does the wall scratching thing - scratch the edge of the high tupperware litterbox, sniff the poo, scratch the walls, sniff the poo, until she gets fed up and leaves. My other cat was a heavy equipment operator in another life - after a litterbox visit, all litter must be moved from one end of the box to the other.
They also do that “one ossified poop kicked out” thing. I give my kitties full credit for using a dirty box - it has to get pretty bad before they give us “the sign.”
My husband’s cat carries a styrofoam bat around sometimes doing this (wailing mournfully) - I don’t think they’re mourning anything; I think they’re demanding that you come and play with them where they are RIGHT F’IN NOW.
I don’t know why, exactly, but this gave me the biggest laugh I’ve had today. Thanks!
Maybe it was the “ossified poop nuggets.” Hmm…band name?
One of my Singapuras likes to “bury” his food dish. He’ll stand next to it and scratch away at the counter. I tell him that it’s offensive (especially since he *eats *the food, so he can’t think it tastes too much like something you bury) but he doesn’t listen.
My younger Singapura waits unerringly until we clean the box (we actually have four boxes to go with five cats, but he has his “favorite”) and then he immediately has to use it. It’s like he saves it up until he’s got a clean box to poop in.
Cats are silly.
Oh, and how have we managed to go this many posts in a cat thread without pictures, anyway? I’m at work and don’t have access to any at the moment, but surely *somebody *must have some?
Might be sharing. My friend has a cat, Artemis, who has a little stuffed bear toy named Mr. Bear that she takes everywhere with her. Artemis frequently puts Mr. Bear in the water and food bowls. Since he’s a stuffed toy, he does appear to be drinking…
Our two mistresses are very fastidious. Litter Box #1 is strictly for pee; Litter Box #2 is for #2, appropriately. We didn’t train them that way. They just decided that since they had two boxes to choose from, they would split the offerings. Luckily both boxes are the covered type, because they both kick like Garo Yupremian trying to cover their scat. Since the boxes are in the wife’s office, this keeps her from throttling the little darlings every time they relieve themselves.
They have also trained me very well when it comes to feeding. They free-feed on dry, but they get a single envelope of wet every afternoon if they ask. When it gets close to meal-time, Havoc will seek me out and prod me with a paw and gesture towards the food dish. If I fail to respond quickly enough, she escalates the prodding until I get up and feed them. At least they have the good graces to refrain from eating until I say “OK.”
