My older cat, Little Bear, will be 20 in a few months. He has never had any litter box problems . . . until recently. There is no problem when he poops. Half of the time there’s no problem when he pees. But the other half of the time:
He goes into the box, and all four paws are inside the box, but his hind quarters are sticking out. Then he pees directly onto the floor. First I bought a new box with higher sides. Didn’t help. Then I bought a box that’s enclosed. Now he pees by the opening, as soon as he get in, right onto the floor.
I don’t think there’s any way to get him to realize that he needs to be further inside the box before peeing. All I can think of is to build a wooden enclosure around the box, with a wide lip that slopes inward. I wish someone actually made a box like that.
There’s lots of great info online about litterbox acceptance issues. A good start is this one from the Humane Society.
The common thread seems to be that medical problems are often the cause if this behaviour starts up out of the blue. Given his age, I’d suggest you take Little Bear in for a checkup ASAP. We had similar issues with Ariel for over a year before taking her to the vet… surprise, turns out she’s diabetic.
Yes, get him to the vet as soon as you can. At that age he may be suffering some stage of kidney failure, which is extremely common in older cats. But don’t panic about that just yet. Our kitty, Mew, was diagnosed with CRF (Chronic Renal Failure) at age 17, and with easy at-home treatment she lived another 5 happy and otherwise healthy years, and actually showed improvement in her kidney values over that time!
And she also did the hang-the-butt-over-the-edge thing as she got older, too. Like you, we tried many different changes, none of which worked at all. What we ended up doing was buying puppy training pads, like these, and putting them under the box, so any misses got absorbed by the pads and could easily be changed and thrown out as needed.
I’m in agreement that it would be wise to have your cat checked for something like a urinary tract infection. But from what you say it doesn’t sound very much like a health problem, more one of behavior. Have you tried changing the position and/or location of the box? How many cats are in the family and how many boxes are there? Has there been a new addition to the family or other stress recently? Have you changed the kind of litter you use?
We had a problem with one of our cats “overspraying” so we put the boxes into the bathtub. That meant we had to use the other bathroom, but the overspray issue became much less critical (although just as messy) once we could wipe it up each time it happened.
>But from what you say it doesn’t sound very much like a health problem, more one of behavior.
I think cats will change behavior in response to health problems. They may be trying to attract your attention because they need help. Or, that may be more cleverness than they are capable of, and there is some other reason they do this. But it is common, for example, for a cat with a urinary infection (clearly a health problem) to urinate on the floor right in front of you (clearly a behavior that shouldn’t make urination any less painful). We’ve seen this many times with our many cats.
I noticed one of my cats doing this butt-over-the-edge thing recently. It turns out it’s because she’s a bit fat and I had changed the super-size box to a regular one. It was a covered box and she couldn’t turn around as well inside the smaller one so she would just go in head first and leave her butt hanging out. When I switched back to the bigger box, no more butt.
Even if Little Bear’s not fat, he may be having trouble turning around. Considering his age though, I’d have him checked out by a vet in any case, but you might try getting a bigger box.
And yes in their little pea brains they will do something “bad” to avoid association with the thing that is causing pain. He could be peeing outside the box because it hurts to pee IN the box, so his little brain says to pee “somewhere else” and maybe it won’t hurt anymore. That’s why I’d get him checked out, esp. at his age.
He just saw the vet last week, and yes he has kidney problems, which necessitate a new type of food. There’s also a new cat in the house, since around Thanksgiving. But this litter box problem started much earlier. I don’t think this is a “behavior” problem per se; it’s not like he’s peeing on the floor deliberately, without going into the box.
I like the idea of putting the box in the bath tub, if I can devise a safe way for him to get in and out. He’s not nearly as limber as he used to be (neither am I).
We had this problem exactly with an older cat. Not much you can do to train him out of it in my experience, but you can do a little by positioning the box so that he’s more or less forced to climb all the way inside (hard to picture, but fuss around and see if you can’t arrange it). Sorry to not be of much help. On the bright side, our kitty lived for a good three years after he began having this problem.
If that’s all your vet has advised, it may be because your kitty’s kidney problems are still in the early enough stages where diet alone can help, and if you try it for a while and it does, that’s great. But be aware that kidney failure is degenerative, so diet alone won’t work indefinitely. If your vet doesn’t talk to you about what to expect, and offer alternatives, don’t be afraid to get 2nd and 3rd opinions and advice. I had to change vets twice before I found one who recommended and supported the right treatments for my cat.
For instance, the first vet immediately put her on potassium supplementation, which I had the hardest time getting her to take. Turns out she didn’t need it, and never did, as her potassium levels never fell below the normal range throughout her entire illness. Why this guy would do that when he could clearly see the test results is a mystery to me. The 2nd one had her on appetite stimulants which made her completely freaked out. She’d roam and pace around, wailing and wailing. Vet 2 didn’t have any other advice to get her to eat, and it wasn’t until vet #3 that I learned that her tummy was simply upset because the liver was creating excess bile while trying to take over some of the lack of kidney function, and a 1/4 Pepcid AC twice a day alleviated her stomach distress, which naturally brought her appetite back.
Mew also began having more trouble jumping up on things, and we saw a HUGE improvement by adding a glucosamine supplement to her diet. She went from falling over when she’d try to get up on a chair, to bouncing around like a 5 year-old cat! And if you can’t get your cat into the tub, don’t forget the Piddle Pad idea. It not only absorbs the overflow, but the odor, as well.
I had the same problem with one of my cats. My litter box was on a patio, and a bit out of the way, so I got one of those big high sided plastic trays that they mix cement in and used that as a litter box. Now the little guy has acres of sand to go in, and the sides are higher than he is. I built a little stool step for him to use and it works perfectly. BTW- the vet said he was fine, he just liked to stand up and pee once and awhile. I sometimes feel like that myself.
One of my cats had a urethrostomy over a year ago, after having many bladder/kidney issues. He’s fine now, but ever since he likes to pee standing up. We got covered litter boxes and he’s considerate enough (he’s a very polite cat by nature) to turn around before he pees, so the urine goes onto the inside back of the box top and dribbles down. It occasionally gets a bit whiffy, but it can be easily wiped up.
Regarding the very large container you use, do you find it hard to empty it and clean it?
I recently got a covered itter box that also has a swinging flap. That may help too. Although Lenny got freaked out the first time he tried to use it because, to him, the litter box looked “closed”. I opened the flap for him, in he went. Then coming out, he got wide-eyed again because he thought he was trapped inside. He sorted it out though after prodding the see-through flap with his paw.
Given that you’re treating for the health-related trigger, a quick fix might just be a change to the litterbox setup/placement. Assuming you’re willing to fork out for yet another box, I’d totally recommend getting a Booda Dome.
Best. Litterbox. EVER.
Plenty of room inside if kitty likes to pee standing up, and since the litter isn’t directly in front of the entrance, it seems to discourage this whole hang-the-butt-out-the-opening habit. It’s definitely helped us a lot with Ariel’s problems once we addressed the root cause (diabetes-related), since she’d still do it once in a while just out of habit.
