Crazy digging around the litter box?

[pisces7386]

We have three cats, the mom and two kitties ( 4 months). The mom and boy kitten are fine in the litter box ( sometimes mom will just walk away from her poop without even trying to bury it and most of the time the boy will dig to china before he pees) but the girl kitten will dig like crazy at the walls around the box. I have read a few posts where people says 'cats will be cats' or ' get a high side rubber maid' but I want a little more advice than that. We are in an apt and we really really don't want (can't) have her ripping up the walls, nor do we have room for a bigger box. ... Here is the exact situation- The littler box is a wal-mart special, decent sized with the inward sloping high sides to keep the litter in. It is in the corner of the bathroom with a floor mat to catch the litter spray. We scoop 2-4 times a day as needed. The mom and brother have no problems... but the little girl will dig like her life depends on it....I mean head down, ears back digging for 5 to 10 minutes unless we stop her... sometimes. Other times she is fine. When we hear her at it, about 2 times a day, we literally have to pick her up out of the box to stop her. We haven't seen any correlations to litter dirtyness or litter depth. Is there anything we can do to stop her?  We are starting to toilet train them ( first steps are raising the box to toilet level) but we are worried about her ripping up the walls or digging until she hurts herself on the toilet. We want to stop the insane scratching around the box without scaring her away from the litter box... any suggestions? Thank you all for any help!

 

[molldee]

My cat digs like crazy too. As far as I know there's nothing you can do to make them stop without scaring them. And you don't want to give them fear of the litterbox!

 

[procat]

Three cats and one litterbox might be driving them to poke around and dig more looking for clean spots in the box. It may look and smell clean to you, but their little noses pick up a lot more than ours.

I think what you have is pretty normal though. I have a box with high sides and most of the litter stays in, but every once in a while she'll face the "wrong" direction and make a mess. You have three times that chance.

 

[stephanietx]

Increase the number of boxes you have and that might take care of the problem.

 

[amythyst]

They say you should have 1 box for every cat you have.  I have three cats as well but I only have 2 boxes one upstairs and one downstairs.  But they are really giant sized boxes with very high sides.  My little kitten does a similar thing... he will go to all four corners of the box and dig he'll start in one corner and just work his way around until he finds it suitable and squats.  He also started this thing where he likes to pee standing up... but I can't really do much about their litterbox behavoir as the other poster said you don't want to make them scared.

It could also be that she finds it "fun".  Does she always use the box after minutes of this behavoir?  Or will she just go in there and dig and not do anything?  If she is doing it for fun perhaps you could distract her with a toy.  But my only other suggestion is getting another box so you don't have just 1 (as the other poster said).

 

[pisces7386]

Thank you all for your responses! I should clarify that she isn't digging in the litter, but rather digging/scratching at the wall around the box after she has used the box and covered her 'business'. It almost seems like she gets stuck in digging mode.... on the wall. We put up a board so that she isn't ripping up the wall, but we are hoping that it is just a temporary measure until we stop the crazy digging. I think Amythyst might be right about her enjoying the digging... she always 'buries' the food and water dishes... even her brother's dish must be buried. Maybe we will try to move the box away from the walls.

 

[amythyst]

Ohhhh..... the walls.... you know I had a siamese that did not know how to cover his stuff at all and would just claw the sides of the box, the wall, outside the box... he didn't do it excessively like your kitty and it sounds like yours actually does cover her mess first.  But if I pulled it away from the walls he would just try to grab anything aside from litter to cover his stuff... like a shirt that might be on the floor near the box or anything else.  I would definately pull it away from the wall completely and see what she does.

 

[wildhoneybee]

My cats like to scratch up the sides of the litter box after they have used it - I don't know how to make them stop but as I have a covered box with an open door they don't actually do any damage so I'm not too worried about it.  Maybe a covered box would work for you to protect your walls?

 

[molldee]

My cat does that too - she digs on the walls and whatever is close to the litterbox. It's very strange, sometimes she'll dig the air.