Cat Box Problem

ucgsb

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We have two cats. A couple months ago, my sister began having her kids come to my house. I committed the cardinal sin of moving the cat box from a now high traffic area to a quieter spot.

Fats, our eldest cat (an ill-tempered 16lb dominant Korat) has no issues with the move (except once I changed to the non lemon fresh brand and he overturned the box) . Sharkey, our youngest (a meek loving 8lb calico, who isn't the sharpest tool in the shed) has always had issues about covering her feces, opting rather to furiously scrape the sides if the boxes and the wall behind the boxes. This is not much of an issue as I clean the box daily or no more than 48hrs between cleanings with completly new sand every Sunday.

However, with the boxes moved, she has taken to once every 1-2 weeks defacating next to the boxes or to the side. She urinates in the boxes and mostly defacates in them, but will leave me a surprise every now and again.

I have had her examined as I was worried about infections, but the Vet says she is healthy. I can not move the boxes back as the poor things would be terrorized by my neices and nephews. The out-of-the-box art work seems to not have any correlation to children visiting either. It seems a more random act.

Any ideas?
 

brienne

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This may or may not apply to your situation, but I had a similar experience.

I have a very large 17lb Maine Coon who shares a large box with a 6 lb torbie. My maine coon likes to play practical jokes on his little sister... We have the Booda Dome with the steps and he likes to hide around the side of the box while my little one is doing her business, so that when she walks out he can pounce right on her then chase her around the whole house. Usually she knew to look around the corner. BUT one day I was cleaning and just happened to SLIGHTLY change the angle of the box. Didnt even recognize I did it. Then, sure enough, my little one started pooping outside the box. Still peeing inside it though. Of course I thought it was medical. Vet said she was ok. I had read a thread here that maybe a cat who does that is AFRAID of something, and thats when I realized that she was pooping in a space where she felt she could get away if she needed to, or so she could see everything. So I then readjusted the angle of the litterbox so that brother could not sneak up on sister, and voila, no more incidents. Everyone happy but brother cat...

SO long story short, does your ill-tempered dominant cat ever pick on your little cat like that? Does he mess around with her when she is trying to do her business? You can imagine that the little cat probably feels a bit more vulnerable anyway, because of size alone. And if you really think about it, it takes a bit more time and concentration for them to poo, and that leaves them motionless and unable to escape for several seconds.

So it might just be an issue of slightly altering the angle of the box, so little cat can see everything and has a clear "escape" route. If thats not really possible, another box would be a good idea, like TNR1 suggested.
 
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