Kitties are darned near perfect. They’re smart, fun, beautiful, and mysterious. But even the best-mannered cat still brings cat litter into our lives. Over the years, I’ve had or known a few different cats who demonstrated litter problems, so I’ll share what the cause was for each and what we did.
Something was wrong with the litter.
This has happened with several different cats among my family and friends. You find a cheap litter or one that promises less dust or less of some other problem. So it’s great for the humans! Then you notice that Fluffy is pawing an area of the carpet behind your favorite area of the room, almost as if she’s covering something up! Yes she is. She just wet the carpet, and she picked the spot where you hang out. It’s behind your sewing machine or your computer or your desk. She’s telling you she hates that litter!
I’ve seen a lot of cats who didn’t worry about the litter box quality-of-life issues, and they’d use anything you put in a litter box. But I’ve known some cats who are just a bit too particular about their litter. Some of them stand in the box and make sure that what they do ends up all down the sides of the box. One cat I’ve had actually wet a place on the carpet when she thought her litter was dirty. So if your cat seems otherwise healthy and is suddenly making a mess, check out the litter box and make sure it’s clean. Also go back to the kind of litter the kitty likes!
Something was wrong with the cat.
I adopted a stray adult cat back in the mid-1980s, but I had no idea how old she was. In 1997 she suddenly started wetting the bed – MY bed. She’d go to sleep on the end of my bed but before morning there would be a wet spot where she’d been lying. I wondered at first if she was mad at me or if there was something wrong with the litter. When I took her to the vet it turned out she had a big tumor taking up space inside her body, pressing on her bladder and lungs too. I was very glad I hadn’t punished her for the wet bed!
Years later I adopted two kittens. One was a hale and hearty tabby, and one was a shy tortie. The tortie never seemed to use the litter box, and she never seemed to eat, either. I took her to the vet after a couple of days (I wasn’t sure she wasn’t eating, since I work full time) and she turned out to have a urinary tract infection! The vet said he saw a lot of shelter kittens with UTIs – those kittens who are so finicky that they wouldn’t use the big group litter box in the cage, so they ended up getting sick! She recovered fully with antibiotics, and you see her in the post about playing with your cat.
Something was wrong with the environment.
I had the perfect setup for my cat a few years ago. I had her litter box in the basement – a nice, daylight basement where she could have her litter box and maybe see some birds or squirrels out the window, yet people coming into our house wouldn’t smell litter if she’d just used it. She had a cat flap door to go from main house to basement. But then – one night my husband took some other guys down there and turned on a very loud stereo – and they were hanging out right between the stairs and the litter box! The cat couldn’t get near her box without going through all the madness of loud music and people. So – she came upstairs and found one of his sneakers and did a huge poop in his sneaker. I laughed when he found it, because I thought it had been a coincidence. But no, she wanted him to know that he had really messed up her tranquil environment.
Make sure your cat’s litter is in a quiet, pleasant place where he can use it uninterrupted!
Your own cat’s situation
You know your cat. Is this a sudden problem? Have you recently adopted other cats – or brought home a really annoying human baby? If so, it’s worth a try making the litter environment nicer for the cat and seeing if that will resolve the problem very quickly. Be sure to thoroughly clean and maybe even block access to any areas that have been soiled, because the cat will always return to those areas if she can smell any scent of her own byproducts there at all!
If after you address the litter and environment issues your cat is still using the carpet or other areas of the house, take him to let the vet rule out any illnesses that need treatment.
Photo credit: AlanD