Need some Kitty Cat Advice

[La Flames Fan]

I have two cats, brothers, named Puddles and Pepper. Pepper is an absolute gem, but Puddles...

Puddles has been, well, doing Oilers-type business (crapping) next to the litter boxes no matter where they are. Here are all the things I've tried so far:

1. Took him to the vet, no issues.
2. Changed litter box types, multiple times
3. Change the type of litter
4. Increase cleaning of litter to twice+ a day
5. Moved litter boxes to various places (I'm in a condo, so not a ton of space)
6. Have 3 litter boxes in the house

I'm at a loss of what to do...I've tried everything I've read about or thought of.

Any cat folks have any further ideas?

[calgarygeologist]

Sounds like it is time to serve him with an eviction notice. He clearly doesn't respect you or you authority so he doesn't deserve to be granted to opportunity to live there any longer.

[PaperBagger'14]

Take the cat to Slivers pet training program. Puddles will be crapping in the litter box and riding in the basket of your mobility scooter in no time

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Take the cat to Slivers pet training program. Puddles will be crapping in the litter box and riding in the basket of your mobility scooter in no time

My cat training program began and ended with my cat crapping on my pillow. That was it. I turfed him.

Just get rid of puddles and buy a new one, OP. They're, like, $20 or something. Can probably even find a free one.

[FlamesAddiction]

We had a cat the used to go outside of the box before. The issue was, when she scratched and if even a little bit of litter was tossed outside of the box, the next time, she would see that little bit of litter, and just go on that. She didn't understand that it was wrong, because she was still going on litter. The only way to correct it was to constantly clean the area to make sure there was no litter around. We also got a big rubber mat for shoes with bermed edged and placed the whole litter box on it, so if she did go in front of it, at lease it would still be contained.

She was also a very long cat, and sometimes her butt would just stick out the end. This may have also been part of the reason she would go next to the box instead on in it. So I built her a larger box, and that worked. Even if your cat isn't that big, I'd try a larger box anyway in case it's a comfort thing.

[GioforPM]

[jammies]

Does Puddles have other behovioural issues? Has he always been like this, or is this a recent development? Does he scratch at his kyit once he's dropped it, or does he just saunter off and ignore it?

It does sound like you've tried all the reasonable things to try. Other than maybe, which might be tough if you are in an apartment, separating him from his brother in his own room with exclusive litter box in case he doesn't like to share. Then, once he's marked it with his scent sufficiently, letting him out.

PS: Also, if he still has his dude bits, get him neutered. That often helps with male cats' territoriality and general disposition.

[1qqaaz]

My bengal cat constantly pooped next to the litter box for years.
A lot of the things you listed helped.

You might want to try moving the litter box to a completely new area and then keeping it pristine from there (no existing scent on the surround floor/carpet area). Might want to add litter-attract initially. My bengal also required a huge litter box to feel comfortable.
I found that keeping the litter level quite high helped as well.

It's also possible that the litter you use doesn't clump well enough, so a lot of the litter is dirtier than it looks.

If he does soil the surrounding area, used an enzyme based cleaner to clean it entirely.

If you are willing to lock the cat in one room for a few days/weeks, it could solve the problem. With a small area, the cat will not want to soil most of its living area. It will consciously try to keep a larger area clean.

[KelVarnsen]

It could be stress. My cat was having some issues when the pandemic started and this helps.

https://www.petsmart.com/featured-br...fmethod=Browse

[MRCboicgy]

If it's a recent development, then I would have to say it could be due to a smell that he doesn't like. Almost any issue I've run into was scent related. This summer, it was a cat who liked to pee right outside the box, and I went thru the exact steps above - checked for UTI at the vet, etc - and the final step was scrubbing the floor, washing all the mats in vinegar and the pee-removal enzyme spray, then spraying the Feliaway cat pheremones in the room. Since then, she's gone 100% in the box.
The vet figures there was just a scent on the floor/mats, given she tried to paw at the mat to cover it up.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

A favourite of mine from waaaay back.

[Wormius]

Is the other cat using the litter box?

Was Puddles ever using the litter box or did you just get the cats?

[WhiteTiger]

Lots of good advice already.

All that I'd add is that Puddles may not like the shape of the box.

With our newest cat, he didn't like the 'roofed' circle or the high-sided circle, and so we'd find 'accidents' all over.

I put out a low-sided rectangle, and he hasn't had a single 'miss' since.

[La Flames Fan]

Thanks all! Will try these things!

The scents, mats, and perhaps stress are things that could be it? He is definitely the more "dramatic" brother. He's a sweetheart, but definitely is the more on-edge one at times.

They're both neutered and Pepper is a champ...the most lowkey cat ever, if I put the litter box anywhere he'd love it and adjust with no problem. It's been at least 4 months of trying all the things with Puddles, so the effort continues.

[MRCboicgy]

One last thing - this might get graphic - but did the vet ask about the dryness of the poo?
My prior cat, despite loving water, wouldn't eat wet food and thus always had pretty dry poo and the poor guy kinda strained to do it. So for 8 years, the vet had us give him 1/8th tsp daily of Restoralax sprinkled onto his food to make it easier. Only had a couple of issues after that.

[D as in David]

Sounds like you've got a Kytty kitty.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by D as in David

Sounds like you've got a Kytty kitty.

My suspicions are confirmed. D as in David is in fact David Caruso.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

Thanks all! Will try these things!

The scents, mats, and perhaps stress are things that could be it? He is definitely the more "dramatic" brother. He's a sweetheart, but definitely is the more on-edge one at times.

They're both neutered and Pepper is a champ...the most lowkey cat ever, if I put the litter box anywhere he'd love it and adjust with no problem. It's been at least 4 months of trying all the things with Puddles, so the effort continues.

I just want to say thanks for not giving up on your pet despite this issue.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

My suspicions are confirmed. D as in David is in fact David Caruso.

[nfotiu]

Also appreciate LFF for being a solid pet owner.

To change the tone of this thread entirely, I have a question about a completely different scenario.

We have a couple rescue dogs that we adopted when they were 6-8 weeks old a couple years ago. They are Female/Male littermates from an abandoned litter. We knew nothing of their breed so did one of those pet DNA tests that came back as German Sheppard/Lab mixes, which matches what their appearance and behaviour.

They are great dogs. We take them to dog parks all the time, and they get along with the big dogs/little dogs/aggressive dogs/passive dogs/etc. My step son has a 3 yo daughter who has poked and prodded them and they just take it and cuddle them.

So here is where the story takes a turn. I was out of town a couple months ago. The housecleaners were cleaning our house and my 17 yo son was keeping them locked outside with him on our porch until they were done. They had turned off all the lights, and my son thought they were done, so he brought them inside. Unfortunately the house cleaners (who are independent and I've had for at least 15-20 years) left both the door to the garage and the door from garage to the outside open because they were coming back in for a bag of trash. So the dogs ran straight outside and my son chased right after them and about 100 seconds later found them standing above a 15 yo 20 pound cat with some bloody wounds.

My son got the dogs, and brought them home by the collar. He called me out while I was in NC, and I tried calling my wife and ended up getting her 23 yo son and my son to go over. The cat wasn't there any more but she had a pet sitting business and a phone number on a poster. So they called the number, and we offered to help with any vet bills they have, and do anything they needed.

They talked for a bit and apparently the woman took the cat to the vet, and they said she had minor puncture wounds, and trouble breathing, but they needed to go to the ER.

The women texted back my wife that they decided to bring the cat home because they don't like emergency vets.

And then she texted back a couple hours later saying the cat died in her arms that night and she was so distraught that she couldn't talk for a couple days.

A couple days later she texted my wife that the vet bills were 1472.29 and our dogs also broke their pipes in their crawl space and wanted $300. The pipe damage was almost impossible since this took place in only 2-3 minutes at most and my son saw most of it. I was out of town and wanting to be cooperative so sent her 1800 and hoped there would be no repurcussions to our dogs.

Well, once she got her money, she went all out crazy calling our dogs murderers and blaming them for her outdoor cat deaths before they were born, and saying my son was lying and he was walking them offleash in her neighborhood.

She then went to animal services to try to get them declared as dangerous dogs. Apparently in Virginia, a dangerous dog declaration requires some evidence that a dog has seriously injured or killed a person, dog or cat.

The animal services people came over to tell us that the woman was wanting to pursue these charges. They said that they tried to talk her out of it and she should be appreciative that we paid her bills because that usually doesn't happen, but she still wanted to proceed. The animal services officers told me to get a lawyer and fortunately I have a legal plan through work I can use for a lawyer. Somehow the guy is a fairly accomplished criminal lawyer who had a (human) murder trial lined up next month, so didn't have a lot of time for pre-trial work for us. He got there and did a solid job trying to make our case, but the judge ruled against us. The judge said it was pretty clear by the law that our dogs should be declared dangerous.

At this point the cat owner jumped out of her seat and ran at our lawyer screaming "How can you F'ing sleep at night?" and the bailiffs had to run down the aisle and tackle her and brought her down the aisle out of court while she was still screaming at our lawyer and us.

The law does allow us to appeal it, and we did that in court. As I looked over the law more, there were a lot of inconsistencies on the judgement. The judge proclaimed a lesser burder of proof (since he's a civil court judge), and said there was clear and convincing evidence, but the code for dangerous dog says that it has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. There are also a couple other clauses that weren't in the summary the judge was looking at the could help our case. And one more section about jury trials being allowed at appeal.

I know that was a whole lot to read, but I've been thinking a lot about AITA.

First of all I feel awful about her cat. Our dogs were likely responsible but have not acted aggressively to another dog or a human in their life and have never been face to face with a cat.

Her having 3 outdoor cats including a very old, overweight cat is not being a responsible cat owner, right? I can understand my dogs chasing cats for fun, but they'd never expect to catch one. Our female dog was missing a patch of fur above her eye after it, so they have just tried to play with it and got clawed and they fought back.

We'll keep pursuing this, but just wanted a sanity check from pet owners to see if we are really as awful as this woman is claiming.