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3 cats - how do I figure out who's pooping outside box?

post #1 of 6
8/27/10 at 9:03am
Thread Starter 
Hi, I have 3 adult cats, 1 male (7) and 2 females (6 & 4). I've been in my current house for 3.5 years. I have 3 litter boxes in my basement, the location has not changed. I've had 3 instances in the past 2 weeks of cat poop in the basement in different areas. Each time it was on a rug in a slightly different area of the basement - once in the laundry room, once at the foot of the stairs and now at the entrance to our game room. Any idea on how I can figure out which cat is doing this? Should I just take all 3 to the vet for checkups? Do you think this is a health issue or potentially behavioral? Nothing else has changed in their environment. They all seem healthy and none of them are meowing or acting weird. I'd really like to know which cat is doing this so I know which one might be ill.
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post #2 of 6
8/27/10 at 12:16pm
You have to go on poop patrol over the weekend. That or start separating the cats to see which one is doing it, though inevitably when you do something like this they won't poop outside the box.

You're probably less paranoid than some of us, thus haven't learned who's poos look like what. And really that's the only easy way to identify something like this.

What is the poop like? Firm? soft? normal? Sometimes if there's an issue a cat will think the discomfort is from the litter box and avoid it.

Have you disturbed the boxes in any way at all or changed your scooping schedule? Anything else new in the house that could have upset your cats or the balance between them?
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post #3 of 6
8/27/10 at 1:59pm
Can you put a litter box on the main level of your house and see if that solves the issue? Maybe someone just isn't making it to the right box on time.
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post #4 of 6
8/27/10 at 6:11pm
Thread Starter 
I don't have anywhere to move them on the first floor - that's where my living room, kitchen and eating area are - no spare nooks. Whoever isn't using the litter box has actually gone past the boxes on two occasions and once was very close to them so I don't think it's a matter of not making it in time. Maybe something is disturbing them?
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post #5 of 6
9/3/10 at 4:28pm
This is difficult, but, as someone else posted, the cat in question may not use the litter box if it associates it with pain. Are the litter boxes clean? I would imagine they are as you have 3, but cats sometimes won't go in a litter box that's too full.

We had problem figuring out a few years back who had bloody urine on the basement floor. We finally figured out which of our 3 cats it was, but this kind of thing is not easy.
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post #6 of 6
9/3/10 at 4:56pm
You can take one cat at a time and put in a room with a litter pan for a day or two and see if you can figure it out.

Or you need to move one box to another place in the basement and not have all 3 of them together.
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