Multiple cat litterbox monitoring

Hi all,

I'm new here, but have already learned some great things, so thank you.  I have three cats, one is a c. 9-year-old, and the other two are both 5 years old.  Everyone is bonded, and the 5 year old boycat idolizes the 9-yr-old.  The older guy, Lionel, just had a "mini" enema (a "pet enema," I think they called it).  It was not entirely clear that he was constipated, but I had just taken him to the emergency room for something else, and when they took xrays they said it looked like he had a fair amount of feces in his colon.  So the next day I brought him in to my vet for a follow up because he hadn't pooped, and they did this smallish enema.  (The reason for the emergency room visit turned out, as far as we can tell, to be an arthritis twinge.)  They didn't seem to think he was inordinately stopped up, but were concerned because what came out was a bit hard.  I feed him wet food. So, they prescribed 1/4 t. Miralax once a day, and I went home.

I kept him in isolation to monitor the litterbox for 24 hours afterwards, but there was no poop (there was urine).  Everyone was driving everyone crazy with the arrangement, and he was eating well and back to being himself, so my vet said to let him out just to keep stress levels down.  My problem is that I have four litterboxes in the basement, and no way to monitor who goes when, and I worry that I won't know if he just has stopped pooping.  Of course, I will watch him carefully over the next few days (I learned here that it can take that long), but won't be able to follow him around!  I know I should probably be paying more attention to bathroom habits now that he is getting older, but am not sure how to do this.  Any suggestions? 

Sorry to be so long-winded.

Thanks for any thoughts you may have. 

Sorry no one has responded up until now   Honesty, it's almost an impossible task.  I have the same issue here, which is compounded by the fact that sometimes I scoop out the boxes, and sometimes my husband does it.  I'm constantly asking him "how many poops did you scoop?" and he always says he doesn't remember .  I'd rather just do it myself, but we're retired and he's trying to help around the house, so it would hurt his feelings if I took that little job away from him

So, I think all you can do is hope for THREE good poops per day, and if you don't get that many, figure it's the oldest one who didn't go.  Not a perfect system, but other than setting up a Nanny Cam, what else can you do?  The Miralax should work well though, especially if you consistently add it to his food.  You may find that 1/4 teaspoon actually causes soft stools.  It's hard to judge.  Sometimes I have to adjust the amount I give mine, but I was giving it twice a day to my old guy (he was 15 with kidney disease).  Now I am doing it just once a day for my old girl, but am thinking about increasing it to twice a day for her two, but just 1/8 teas. each time.

So did they give him anything for the arthritic twinge?  That could cause him to not want to use the litterbox too, I'd imagine, if he's in pain in that position.

Many thanks for those ideas!  I remembered after I posted that I have a "critter cam," which I put down the basement, and it gave me the information I needed.  I felt pretty smug, in fact.  The Miralax seemed to do the trick, and Lionel is back to his normal self.  I highly recommend that technique!