One of my cats is pooping on the floor. Heeeelp!

This is probably a typical problem and I have tried to read a lot about it, but so far no luck in finding a solution.

Here's the story:

I have two cats. One male (neutered) who doesn't give us any trouble and one female who always poops on the floor. The  male we have had for 7 months and the female for around 4 months. They are both born in around June last year. We have always had the toilet in the bathroom, where everything went fine. We then started to train them to use the real toilet (using some cat toilet training we found on amazon). It all started well. The cats quickly got used to go to toilet, while their litterbox was inside the toilet. So far so good.

Whenever us humans go to toilet we will of course need to remove the litterbox from the toilet. We just place it on the floor next to the toilet. One day when I was on the toilet the female decided to go poop, which she did in the litterbox that was placed on the floor. Ever since then she had refused to poop in the litterbox inside the toilet (peeing is no problem), she always poops in the same location as where she pooped when the litterbox was there. After endless of tries to catch her when pooping (to move her to the correct place to poop) we have decided to go back to step one in the training. We have now moved the litterbox back to the floor where she used to poop, hoping that now she would go back to poop in the box again, unfortunately that has only made her change her pooping location, so she will keep pooping on the floor. At least it is always in the bathroom she poops on the floor, but never other places, but it's still driving my wife and me crazy. Just this morning when she pooped, she was less than 50 cm away from the litterbox.

My cats are living in a stress free environment and my cats are great friends, often lying next to each other "kissing and hugging". They are both indoor cats. We rarely have visitors and when we do, the cats are not shy to "say hello" to the visitors.

The female cat also has a great place to be alone. In the bathroom (which is kind of the safe place for them), the female can easily jump to the top of the cabinet where she can lie alone and keep an eye on everything, where the male can't follow (the male doesn't like jumping)

The type of stones I use in the litterbox haven't changed at all. Also note that the female really likes to scratch around in the litterbox. This was specially clear when we had the litterbox inside the toilet as she would often "play" with the stones until they fell into the toilet (My guess is she really liked the sound the stones makes when they where in the water)

We do keep the litterbox clean. When the male cat poops I always make sure to remove it as soon as possible and I do remove old litter stones and put new stones in every day. We also don't move around with the litterbox, it is always in the same place all the time.

So far I have always been screaming when I saw poop, but after a bit of reading I can see I need to stop that. We will also take her to the vet soon, to see if there is a problem, but my guess is since it started the day she was allowed to poop in the litterbox on the floor, my guess is it doesn't have anything to do with health problems (but let's see). We could also try to put the box in the place where she has pooped the last few days, unfortunately that is right by the bathroom door, which would make it difficult to enter, not to mention this is where we need to stand when we wash hands and dry our bodies after taking a shower (the bathroom is very small)

But what should I do instead? Any great ideas?

Hi Adrian, and welcome to TCS!

I'm just a little confused.  You actually put the litterbox in the toilet?  I'm not sure why you do that since you have to remove it all the time when you want to use it, or is it a special one for training cats to use the human toilet?  (I'm not really big on that as cats do like to do the whole dig and bury thing). 

Also you are saying she still wees in the toilet one?   Some cats just won't wee where they poo and need two litterboxes.. I have two cats and four boxes.

I think it's a really good idea to take her to the vet, just to be sure. But it does sound like there's an issue with the litterbox.. and I'm still unsure about the weeing situation with her, so perhaps you could clarify that?

Sorry for late reply, been a hectic week lately.

Yes, it is a special training for them, to make them learn to pee in the humans toilet. In the beginning it is of course annoying having to remove the cats litter box every time we want to use the toilet our self, but in the end the litter box will be completely gone, making it hassle free for us.

Since I posted the first message, here's what has happened:

We have placed the litter box on the floor in the bathroom (no longer inside the toilet)

Coco (the male) has been using the litter box for peeing and pooping all the time without any problems

Mercedes (the female) has been using the litter box for peeing without any problems. Pooping went with 50% success rate. Half of the time she  pooped in the litter box, the other half she pooped on the floor somewhere in the bathroom near the litter box

She is obviously not avoiding the litter box, otherwise she would have pooped on the floor every time

I really would suggest another litterbox.. at least one more.  She may just be one of those cats (I have two like it) who really don't like weeing where they poo.

This is an article which tells you absolutely everything you need to know about litterboxes

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/litterbox-problems-in-cats-the-ultimate-guide

Thanks for the tip, I'll try it out, even though we have very little space

You may have tried this already, but it's worth putting out there... Have you thoroughly scrubbed the area with an enzyme cleaner like Nature's Miracle? 

From reading your post, it is even possible that the bottom of the litterbox had some residue that was left behind when you placed it on the floor. Add to that the fact that your cat has been repeatedly defecating on the floor. They will return to their "scent" which is very hard to get rid of without the right combination of products to destroy all the smell components that attract a cat to return to their toileting spot. 

Having tried and failed with that toilet-training device (CitiKitty?), I noticed my cats felt it was a very poor excuse for a litterbox. It's too shallow for them to bury, stuff gets stuck in the grooves, and it's not sturdy enough to sit properly on the toilet. It's a nightmare to scoop! Never gets clean enough, especially for fastidious cats.  I'm not surprised they prefer a standard litterbox... or even the clean floor.My cat also peed on the floor next to the "box" when she got frustrated trying to bury in the shallow litter. She just hated the CitiKitty. I gave up and went back to the standard litter box and they've never had a problem since.