Nano is a very persistent and intelligent cat, so she always seems to find a way to escape from my apartment on a weekly basis. A couple days ago someone was leaving and the door was ajar for three seconds and she sprinted out the door. "I didn't know your cat could move that," the guy said when apologizing.
Anyway, she will come back in 1-2 hours and claw at the door to be let back in. But while outside, one of the things she does -- besides some quick exploring -- is to defecate. And once she comes home, for the next 48 hours Nano will repeatedly whine at the front door to be let outside whenever she needs to go to the bathroom.
Nano will gladly use the litterbox to urinate, but she will become constipated and tolerate severe discomfort rather than use the litterbox to defecate. She keeps waiting for me to let her outside. As a behavior issue, I ignore whining and begging but eventually (after 36-48 hours without clearing herself) I have to re-acclimate her to the litterbox because I get worried about her health. Here is what I do:
I will take off the lid, sit down on the floor and noisily run the rake through the litter for 2-5 minutes. Once I do this, Nano will immediately get into the box and I will walk away to give her privacy and then she will finally defecate. In the next two hours she will willingly use the litterbox (without me prompting her) until she is fully caught up on her business. Then she is a happy girl and regular again...until she escapes and gets to use the bathroom, then we have to repeat the whole charade.
Please remember this is a rescued stray so consider her background information: Although she is 6-8 years old, I had to train Nano to use a litterbox when I rescued her. For the first couple of weeks she would ignore the litterbox. She "buried" her turds under clothes left on the floor, under floor rugs and other creative places. She urinated in the bathtub.
I never punished her but three times a day I would place her inside the litterbox until she figures out she could "dig" and then eventually she learned to bury.
More background information: At one point she began defecating in front of her litter box. This was at around the 4-6 week mark. So she clearly knew she was supposed to use a litterbox, but wasn't figuring out she needed to get inside.
Anyway, I solved this problem by giving her an extra large litter box. One more strange thing: I have to use 30 lbs of litter (yeah, I know) at a time because she gets skittish if she doesn't have a very deep layer in there!
Now back to the main problem: Once Nano has a jaunt outdoors, how can I get her to defecate regularly in the litterbox once back inside and not wait until she gets constipated? I can always use that "trick" to get her to go, but that is time consuming and disruptive to other things. And please remember, once she uses the litterbox then she is "re-trained" and back to ideal behavior...until she gets outside again and loses her acclimation.
Anyway, she will come back in 1-2 hours and claw at the door to be let back in. But while outside, one of the things she does -- besides some quick exploring -- is to defecate. And once she comes home, for the next 48 hours Nano will repeatedly whine at the front door to be let outside whenever she needs to go to the bathroom.
Nano will gladly use the litterbox to urinate, but she will become constipated and tolerate severe discomfort rather than use the litterbox to defecate. She keeps waiting for me to let her outside. As a behavior issue, I ignore whining and begging but eventually (after 36-48 hours without clearing herself) I have to re-acclimate her to the litterbox because I get worried about her health. Here is what I do:
I will take off the lid, sit down on the floor and noisily run the rake through the litter for 2-5 minutes. Once I do this, Nano will immediately get into the box and I will walk away to give her privacy and then she will finally defecate. In the next two hours she will willingly use the litterbox (without me prompting her) until she is fully caught up on her business. Then she is a happy girl and regular again...until she escapes and gets to use the bathroom, then we have to repeat the whole charade.
Please remember this is a rescued stray so consider her background information: Although she is 6-8 years old, I had to train Nano to use a litterbox when I rescued her. For the first couple of weeks she would ignore the litterbox. She "buried" her turds under clothes left on the floor, under floor rugs and other creative places. She urinated in the bathtub.
More background information: At one point she began defecating in front of her litter box. This was at around the 4-6 week mark. So she clearly knew she was supposed to use a litterbox, but wasn't figuring out she needed to get inside.
Now back to the main problem: Once Nano has a jaunt outdoors, how can I get her to defecate regularly in the litterbox once back inside and not wait until she gets constipated? I can always use that "trick" to get her to go, but that is time consuming and disruptive to other things. And please remember, once she uses the litterbox then she is "re-trained" and back to ideal behavior...until she gets outside again and loses her acclimation.