new kitten sometimes doesn't use her box

So we have Samara who is an avid 100% of the time litterbox user.  Now we have Sheila who we adopted in September she is 5 months old.  From the time we got her we'd sometimes find accidents in her litterbox room (usually poop only once have I found pee).  I chalked it up to her litterbox was dirty, cleaned it up with nature's miracle and went about my way.  We usually run into this problem maybe twice a month with Sheila.

Anyways she went in for her spay(no declaw) the day after thanksgiving and everything was going great until this morning she came into the computer room (where her box is) walked right past her box and took a big pee on our carpet.  The one pee that I found before was just a tiny bit it looked like she went to her box, peed and didn't realize she was completely done before she hopped out.  But this time she didn't even go in her box just peed right on the carpet.  So I immediately checked her box, even though I just cleaned them all last night and there was basically nothing in her box.  So I cleaned the floor again, cleaned the boxes and made the mistake of telling my husband (I hadn't told him about any of her accidents before this one).

So now I have to think of something quick to help her because he is mad.  I am going to go out and get bigger boxes, if they make them any bigger, and I hear about a litter called cat attract I am going to buy some of that too (anyone have any feedback good or bad would it possibly help in this situation), also going to call her vet tomorrow maybe she has a UTI from her surgery.  I have also noticed that I feed her predominantly canned food but when I have to offer her dry food this happens more I don't think she does this when she's on all canned food.  Could the mostly dry food be causing accidents (it kind of sounds far fetched to me but she is a cat so she may be expressing her dislike).

Personally if it was mine l would take her to get the once over anyway just incase it is a UTI, then you can take it from there on trying the other things

I would also have a urinalysis done and a vet check first and foremost. You also must properly clean up the urine spot's with an enzymatic cleaner. I have never had much luck with Nature's Miracle. Here is an article written by an experienced member on the subject.

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/how-to-remove-cat-urine

Then I would definitely get the Cat Attract litter and the herbal cat litter attractant. It is in a clear bottle and looks like herb's. Sprinkle and mix that into the litter to really get Sheila back to the box. You also might have to confine her to a small room until she is back to the box regularly. Is there any stress or issues between Sheila and Samara? Sometimes stress and inter-cat relationships are the issue. Just make sure you have at least THREE large boxes set up around the house.

But first do check with the vet. Since this started right after Sheila arrived, she might already have been suffering from an UTI before you got her . Much luck to Shela and keep us posted

thanks for the suggestions.  What I also did is I keep one of the mats in front of the box and I took that away my husband noticed she doesn't like walking on it so maybe that's also causing her to avoid the box?  We're not sure.

Her and Samara as far as we know get along ok, I haven't noticed any fights however they are hardly snuggle buddies.  I haven't seen any of the cats picking on each other though.

As for stressors the past 2 weeks we've had some guys redoing the bathroom so maybe that's making her nervous but her pottying outside the box has happened since before they started and usually it's poop only the once has it been pee and even then it was such a tiny little bit but this time she completely didn't even try to get in the box just walked past it and peed on the floor.

We have a vet appointment for her wednesday I called and let them know and they said just bring her in.

Friday I'm going to replace our boxes with all new boxes, we use the biggest cat box you can find at the stores apparently so we can't get any bigger but we thought about leaving some open and some enclosed see if possibly it's the cover that she doesn't like.  I'll also pick up the cat attract and the attractant I found that both at the pet store for $15 for a 20 lb bag of litter and $15 for the attractant.  We have 4 boxes though, one in the laundry room, one in the computer room, one in our bedroom and one in the storage room.

You can try those under the bed storage bins if you want a larger size box.. one like this, but no lid of course:



there's also taller ones if you prefer a taller too. I use this for one of my cats and it works well

well no UTI that the vet noticed when they tested her so we went out got a bigger litter box and the same litter she's used to and that helped...for awhile.  She pooped on the floor again this morning.  So I'm going to take the lids off and see if that helps her maybe she doesn't like the lids?  If that doesn't help we'll try the cat attract litter.  Just frustrates me I've been scooping her box twice a day it's spotless and she still went on the floor.  We have no room we can enclose her in either because the only small room we have is the bathroom and with 4 people and 1 bathroom someone's constantly going in and out and she wouldn't stay in there too long.

How many litter boxes do you have?  Many here recommend one for each cat, and one extra for the house.

I have seen cats that would only poop in one box, and pee in another.  I've seen some that hated using a box that had been used even once without being scooped.  There are all kinds of permutations of litter box preferences in cats, just like people.  (I once had a friend who wouldn't use the bathroom at work; he would drive 15 miles home to use that one if he had to go badly enough.)

mrblanche said:

How many litter boxes do you have?  Many here recommend one for each cat, and one extra for the house.

I have seen cats that would only poop in one box, and pee in another.  I've seen some that hated using a box that had been used even once without being scooped.  There are all kinds of permutations of litter box preferences in cats, just like people.  (I once had a friend who wouldn't use the bathroom at work; he would drive 15 miles home to use that one if he had to go badly enough.)

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We have 4 litterboxes and we have 2 cats.  Sheila only goes in the one box mainly sometimes will use the box that we have in our room because she likes to sleep with us at night.  I scoop their boxes 2-3 times a day.  Once in the morning, I check in the afternoon and scoop if need be and than again right before bed.  I just started doing this about a month or so ago because I figured maybe Sheila just needed an extra clean box and it's not seeming to help.

I have resorted to housebreaking her like a puppy, I take her to the box like 3-4 times a day and praise and treat if she goes in her box, since her last poop accident(3 days ago) she has done good though.  We took all the lids off the boxes, got bigger boxes too so far and will see where it goes from there.  Also Sheila's box she mainly uses is in an open closet in my computer room So I cleared everything out of the closet because the box was really enclosed even with the lid off and we lined around the box, along the sides, with aluminum foil.  My mom told me to do that because supposedly they don't like the sound of the foil so stop going in that area.

take that back...as I was typing Sheila was at my feet eating when she got done eating she walked one foot from her dish and tried to pee on the carpet I distracted her tried putting her in her box she refused to stay in her box and ran and peed under the christmas tree in the livingroom.  This is getting very frustrating her box was 100% clean we just cleaned it half an hour ago.