I think we are going to have to find a new home for our cat unless I can find a way to change her behavior. My 9 year old cat poops anywhere but the box. This is somewhat new behavior - it has been going on for 3 weeks. The vet ran tests, she came up healthy. No changes in anything at home. She has just decided over the last few weeks that dropping a steamer on our carpet is better than her box. Well, that has landed her alot of time in isolation in the room where the box is because we just can't not have her pooping all over our white carpet. The minute she gets out of her room, she runs to a random room in the house and lays a turd. It is driving me nuts, but DH mad. DH & the cat have a mostly hate relationship. Anywho, unless we can rectify this behavior, she is going to have to go due to obvious sanitary reasons. Anyone have this problem and what did you do? I have been searching online in random forums and have not yet found a solution that works.
Weird...we are going through the exact same thing with our cat. We moved at the end of September though so I think that is what's wrong with ours...at least I hope it is and he stops soon. Because I can't take much more of it.
OMG, my cat went through that, too. He developed a litter box aversion and we tried everything. First he was pooping just on the throw rug in the downstairs bathroom - which wasn't HORRIBLE considering you could pick that rug up and throw it in the machine. And even then, he didn't do it all the time - and if we kept the bathroom door shut he didn't do it at all. Then all of a sudden he started pooping at the bottom of the basement stairs, and I was like "WTF is wrong with this cat?!" So one day I was up in the kitchen making dinner and I heard him scratching around down there, so I flew downstairs and grabbed one of the litter boxes and literally put it at the bottom of the stairs. And then he used it RELIGIOUSLY. But I didn't want a litter box at the bottom of my basement stairs! Eventually we managed to move it little by little further into the basement, but he NEVER let me move it back to the laundry room where the other one was (for the other cat). Also I had to remove the cover from it, and the liners. Just straight litter in an open pan - that was all he'd use. He developed some sort of aversion to the box and I have no idea what caused it. Vet said it could be anything - could have been the washing machine going off balance while he was in the box one time, or the furnace firing up. He was always sort of a jumpy cat anyway. But then he started peeing on the carpet, and then ... he had this horrible UTI, and I had to switch him to special food, then he went on a hunger strike and turned yellow (jaundice) and developed fatty liver disease. I had to put a feeding tube into him this past January and after a couple days I had to have him put to sleep when it just wasn't working. So in the end, the vet was left wondering whether it wasn't something systemic that caused the succession of events (it wasn't fast - it was over the course of about 10-12 months) or whether all the things were just a coincidence leading up to his eventual illness. Not to scare the bejeezus out of you or anything, that's just our story. When we got our new kitten about two months later, he was pooping over in the corner of our living room for NO GOOD REASON, and a friend of mine told me to put down aluminum foil (just tape a big square of it over the place he seemed to prefer) and then it would get him to stop going to that spot. So I did that, and kept putting him in his litter box, and eventually he got the hint.
Oh, Mint. I am so sorry. I honestly wonder if there is something hidden wrong with our cat. She is resilent & has never had stress issues - the poor cat has moved five times with me/us & been on an 18 hour road trip with no issues ever. She had the same issue your kitten had when she was a kitten too. That foil trick does work wonders .... but she is pooping in all different places, on all 3 levels of our house.
We had a similar problem with our tomcat a while ago...suddenly he decided to pee at the most different places in the flat but never on the floor...he peed on clothes lying on the floor, on the sofa and even on the bed! He didn't did it all the time...just sometimes and we had no clue why. We didn't changed anything... After a while we removed the hat of the litter box and voila...now he is happy again. But I don't think this would help in your case...
Maybe there's something wrong that didn't show up in the tests? My friend had a cat that suddenly started peeing on her bed (nice, right?) nearly every day. They took him to the vet a few times before they discovered that he had some sort of ear infection making his ear really itchy and sore. Once that cleared up, the peeing on the bed stopped, so I guess he was trying to tell her something
Hmmm, I have no insight. My cat is 14 and she will only poop in a clean litter box, so I have to scoop it all the time. If there is a poop in there and she needs to go, she will go outside of the litter box. Furry little diva.
We had this problem with one of our cats too. We sprayed the areas where she went with Lisol and she eventually stopped. She was somewhat of a priss because if there was ANY potty in the box at all, she would NOT go in there. We had to start making sure that box was always clean and once we did that combined with the Lisol trick, she stopped.
Hmm ... We put 2 litter boxes in the room and switched walls. Hoping this works. Otherwise, I may have to chose between keeping my cat or my husband. After a day like today, my DH would loose.
We had one that hunts out my hubbie stuff to pee on it and all over his office so she lives outside now. We have a screened in porch and she is perfectly happy now. I think part of it was sharing a pot with 2 others when she had her own originally, but since my hubbie is the litter changer she blames him.
Thats awful! Pets are funny things I guess since they can't talk they use that as a way of telling us something is wrong. We went away for 2 days and had my husbands sister letting out dog out and feeding him a couple years ago and as we were coming home she called while she was at the house and we were 30 mins away. She let the dog out all was fine 30 mins later we show up at home and our dog pooped on the couch!!! From a dog that hadn't went in the house in 2+ years I was sooo mad but knew why he did it. He was mad at us for being gone so long and that was how he thought he should show it. LOL Good thing we dont show it that way.
