Cat faeces 'logs' in litter tray block another cat's toileting routine

This is a cross-post as I think it is an interesting topic for cat caregivers.

As a cat caregiver you must have heard about the need to keep the litter tray clean. This applies particularly in homes where there are several cats. And in those homes if cats are sharing a litter tray or there are less litter trays than cats and one cat has used the litter tray, the next cat will be put off by the sight of faeces logs in the litter substrate but not by the smell of the logs.

This image summarises the study findings. Image: MikeB. Words: the study.

And in being put off by the sight of the faeces they may not use the litter tray and may even defecate outside the litter tray (inappropriate elimination).

The interesting aspect of the study which discovered this (see citation below) is that the problem for cats sharing litter trays is the physical presence of the faeces in the substrate not the odour of the other cat's faeces. 

This surprised me as cats have very effective noses and they scent mark with urine and faeces. Because scent marking is so big in their lives you'd have thought that the odour of another cat's faeces would be the off-putting issue but no.

This is about VISUALLY offending the cat about to embark on a toilet session and not in terms of odour.

The study worked with cats that got along. It might be a different story if they did not. They discovered this phenomenon by depositing false cat faeces in the litter tray that were odourless. The cats were put off by them. 

They also put in 'faux-urine' and they were put off by that as well, even more so.

Citation for the study: Does previous use affect litter box appeal in multi-cat households? Researchers: J.J. Ellis, R.T.S. McGowan, F. Martin. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2017.02.008

P.S. It is best not to super-clean litter trays and remove all the natural feline scent from it as cats are attracted to the scent of their poop and pee and use the area as a toilet.

P.S. 2 - The best practice in multi-cat homes is to have one tray per cat. This would avoid the above mentioned issue. I suspect that not many owners of several cats do this however. The issue mentioned on this page may be a big factor in trying to control cat toileting in multi-cat homes.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Litter box problems: the big why. Three categories.

Litter box problems are very common cat ownership problems and even more commonly written about on the Internet! It's got quite tiresome reading about them but I would like to very briefly mention the three categories which describe the reasons for inappropriate elimination i.e. litter box problems. 

This is a discussion article using Galaxy's book Total Cat Mojo as a source.

There are three primary umbrella categories and they are. As mentioned, I am referring to Jackson Galaxy's writings of which I have been critical sometimes. Unless I am misunderstanding him which would be entirely possible as his writing is impenetrable sometimes. 😢 Sorry. He is a great guy though. I just don't like his books.

RELATED: What is the best location for a cat litter tray?

Territorial stress: Jackson Galaxy says that one cause of litter box problems is territorial stress. He appears to be talking about the establishment and retention of a home range by domestic cat which is instinctive to the cat. And if their home range is invaded they might mark their territory at the extremities of the territory to tell invaders to stay away. But I don't think this is anything to do with inappropriate elimination i.e. peeing in litter box. Spraying urine on vertical surfaces is not about eliminating urine from the system. It's about sending a message to other cats. Although it might look like inappropriate elimination it isn't.

But Jackson does go on to say that when domestic cats are able to fully express their behaviours, in Jackson Galaxy language "the cats have total cat mojo", and they are unable to express their mojo because of territorial stress then they might urinate but this form of peeing will I believe be spraying rather than elimination. Perhaps the means that stress per se can disrupt the used of the litter tray. Certainly in multi-cat homes there is a great chance that the cat will be stressed because of territorial issues.

Mr Galaxy says that "If the mojo is missing, there will be pissing."

These threats within the territory might come from within the territory or outside the territory. If it outside the territory it will be an invasion which might shrink the territory. If it comes from within the home range i.e. territory it might be due to broken or non-existent relationships or changes within the "rhythm of the territory or the territory itself will threaten the mojo balance". This is typical Galaxy language which is almost impenetrable. But I think he means that there will be a limited hierarchy in multi-cat homes which should be in balance. If not it can stress cats.

Litter box aversion: this applies to cats that don't want to use a litter box for a number of reasons. It applies to using any place within the home other than the litter box to urinate and defecate. It may be due to declawing which makes their paws sore. It might be due to the substrate i.e. the material in the litter box. It might be to do with the size of litter box being too small. Litter box might be covered and this might upset the cat. Or it might be in the wrong place (too exposed). 

RELATED: 26 facts about ‘inappropriate elimination’

And it may be because other cats are using the litter box i.e. it's shared which is not a good idea. And there might be challenges from one cat to another to use the litter box which might cause litter box aversion. Sometimes in multi-cat homes, one cat bars other cats from using a single litter box or getting at food et cetera. It's a form of domination.

Medical issues: this overlaps with the above. In the words of Jackson Galaxy, "There can be a number of physical maladies that trigger eliminating outside the litter box. Left untreated, many of these can lead to, or serve as an indication of more serious health risks." He recommends a visit to a veterinarian without fail at the first sign of any litter box issues.

Declawing as mentioned comes to mind. Cystitis due to stress causes peeing on carpets and in baths. It is a bacterial infection of the bladder. It can be due to separation anxiety.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

"Curiosity killed the cat" is an adage which was "Care killed the cat" meaning anxiety

We all know the old saying "Curiosity killed the cat". It's a saying which fits cat behaviour. Domestic cats are, indeed, very curious. It gets him into trouble sometimes which is why they can be harmed because of their curiosity and even, rarely, killed. Therefore, the adage has some veracity.

Domestic cats' lack of understanding of activities and objects in the human world makes them nervous. Photo: Pixabay.

But the original version of this proverb, from its first appearance in the 16th century until the end of the 19th century was, "Care killed the cat".

Care meaning anxious

In this saying, the word "care" means to worry about or to be anxious about something or other. It points to the possibility that cats could become so anxious and worried about something that it could even kill them. And this, apparently, used to be a belief by many people back in the day when the saying was first created.

And interestingly, this concept of worry killing cats is being revisited by veterinarians. Perhaps it's being revisited in terms of the fact that anxiety in domestic cats can harm their health which can lead to on occasions a serious health problems and even death.

But apparently, about 25% of cat owners surveyed in a 2008 study believed that their cat was incapable of feeling anxiety or sadness. Times have changed thanks to the internet I would say which has educated many cat owners. It is believed now that cats can at least experience the basic emotions that humans experience which includes anxiety or sadness.

And if asked today, scientists would agree that the old version of the proverb is to a certain extent true. Anxiety does present as a serious and real affliction for many domestic cats.

Anxiety is defined as a fear of something that is not currently happening. And you will find that there are, today, some anti-anxiety drugs which have been developed for humans which can be used on cats off-licence. Although, we are still unsure as to whether domestic cat feels the same kind of anxiety that humans feel but we are sure that feline anxiety is similar to human anxiety.

Elavil for anxious cats sometimes. Last resort. Image: MikeB

Interestingly, in the study I mention, more than 60% of cat owners thought that domestic cats can be jealous. Almost 20% of the participants thought that cats can feel the emotion of embarrassment and more than 20% believed that cats can feel shame. Around 35% believed that cats can feel guilt and 40% were sure that cats experienced grief. About 60% thought that domestic cats experienced empathy.

Home range issues

The most common cause of anxiety in cats is to worry that their home range i.e. their territory is about to be invaded by other cats in the neighbourhood. This might apply to full-time indoor cats when looking out the window into the back yard.

Or they might feel this anxiety when living in a multi-cat home and where their territory is very compressed. Under these circumstances home ranges overlap a lot and there is a greater possibility for cats to develop anxiety because of intrusions into their home range.

When Dr. Jon Bradshaw conducted a survey of 90 cat owners in suburban Hampshire and rural Devon in 2000, the participants reported that almost 50% of their cats regularly fought with other cats. They confirmed that 40% of the cats were fearful of cats in general.

He states that he has a colleague, a veterinary surgeon, Rachel Casey, specialising in cat behavioural disorders who regularly diagnoses anxiety and fear. She believes that these emotions are main factors driving cats to urinate and defecate indoors outside of the litter box.

Forced to live with cat they don't trust and owner absence

As about half of domestic cats on that survey suffer from anxiety the old adage that I mention above carries some truth. And this leads to inappropriate defecation and urination inside the home. When cats defecate on bedsheets which by the way happened to my ex-wife's cat after my divorce, the cat is desperately trying to mingle their own smells with their owner's smells to establish ownership. 

It can be reassuring for a cat to do this. In my ex-wife's case I don't think this was about ownership of space but more about anxiety about her absence. Although she had introduced a new cat to the home which would have probably compounded the matter.

The stress of being forced to live with a cat or cat that they don't trust can affect a cat's health. The classic illness caused by stress is cystitis which veterinarians call idiopathic cystitis because there is no apparent cause of it.

66% urination problems

Dr. Jon Bradshaw tells me in his book Cat Sense that "As many as two thirds of cats taking to vets for urination problems-blood in the urine, difficult or painful urination, urinating in inappropriate places-have no obvious medical problems, other than inflammation of the bladder and intermittent blockage of the urethra by mucus thereby displaced from the bladder wall. The factors triggering such episodes of cystitis are therefore psychological."

Lack of understanding

When you think about it, there are a lot of things about the human world that domestic cats are going to struggle to understand because they are human. They can become acclimatised to them but constantly fail to understand them.

Certainly, new events and activities can make them anxious because of this failure to understand.

It's a reminder that we are different species and that our relationship as is an interspecies relationship and therefore quite special.

There are numerous activities which occur throughout the day and throughout the year which can cause anxiety and which are exclusively human in nature such as fireworks, delivery vans outside, the doorbell going off, the hoover being used and so on and so forth.

Owners aware

I think based upon this article that many cat owners should really be switched onto the possibility that their cat companion is going to stressed at some stage of their lives and they should look to the causes, the most common of which, as mentioned, is another cat or cats.

Why do people abandon their cats? Lots of reasons!

Rescued Ragdoll cats. These cats were voluntarily relinquished by the person who bred them or who is breeding them. Photo: MSPCA.

There are many reasons why people abandon their pets. In descending order of importance, I have listed 10 below the spreadsheet. There are actually at least 3,207 reasons (😢) to relinquish your cat according to a study by the Regional Shelter Relinquishment Survey (Salman and others in 1998). Here are the top 41 reasons. Below that list are the reasons that I thought of before I discovered the 3,207 reasons!

Here are my reasons which came to my head fairly quickly.

1. Moving home. It sounds frivolous and careless but it is apparently true. People for whatever reason do not want to take their animals with them sometimes. I suppose the classic reasons are that the new home does not permit pets or is too small (leasehold contract). The downsizing may have been forced on the person for economic reasons. However, often the true reasons are not disclosed. Indeed, the person may even deceive himself.
2. A second reason for abandoning a pet is that the person adopted the companion animal when he or she was a cub or kitten and then is surprised (overwhelmed) at how large the animal has become when adult. This problem applies to dogs.
3. Purely economic reasons - the owner can't afford to keep a companion animal. This may be because of misplaced expectations or dire financial circumstances beyond the control of the person.  You will probably find, though, that the car stays as will the iPhone and the $100 a month telephone bill!
4. Another reason is that the companion animal was bought as a present and the person receiving the present becomes disinterested after a while. This may happen when parents give a child a kitten as a present. If the child gives up caring for the cat, the parents take over and then they give up later.
5. Expectations about maintenance and costs can be misplaced and when reality clicks in the owner gives up and abandons the cat or dog. This can be avoided by reflection and careful objective consideration before adopting.
6. For cats, so called "behavior problems" are a big reason for abandonment. These "problems" are often human expectation problems because the cat behavior is normal cat behavior and their owner does not like it. Once again it is about expectations and education before adopting. Should education be obligatory before people acquire a pet? If it was, you would need licensing. This is one of those moot questions. There is a need for better cat ownership to minimise the creation of feral cats.
7. Inappropriate elimination (urinating outside the litter tray) is a potential reason for abandonment. The reasons behind this behavior might be found in the environment that the person has created (too stressful for example) and nearly always will be or the cause is medical. Inappropriate elimination is appropriate for the cat because the simply react naturally and instinctively to forces beyond their control.
8. Another and controversial reason why people abandon their cats is declawing. Declawing a cat can result in behavior problems such as being unable to use litter trays as it hurts too much. This can lead to relinquishing the cat to a shelter.
9. Sometimes people become too old, frail of sick to continue caring for a cat or cats.
10. Rarely cat hoarders have a light bulb moment and realise that they can't cope and seek help. This as mentioned is mightily rare.

Click this link for Elisa Black-Taylor's thoughts on this topic.

RELATED: 3207 Reasons To Relinquish Your Cat.

Try using an indoor pen to retrain your cat to use the litter tray (last resort?)

I believe it is quite rare for a domestic cat to stop using the litter tray and when they do they'll be good reasons. Cats instinctively use a litter tray within the home because it is the only suitable material onto which and in which they can defecate and urinate. They migrate to it naturally. But if a cat stops using it and they soil the home they are not doing it out of nastiness or because they want to annoy you for some reason. Some people believe that 😏 .

They'll be logical, sensible and natural reasons for it such as bladder inflammation (cystitis) a common health problem, or diarrhoea so they can't make the litter tray in time.

The most common cat behaviour problem is depositing urine and/or poop outside of the litter box for one reason or another. Picture: Pixabay.

If cats are indoor/outdoor cats and they normally go to the toilet outside there may be a reason why they stop using the outside area. There may be no litter tray inside which causes a conundrum for them resulting in inappropriate elimination inside as a possible consequence.

For instance, if it is cold and wet outside and there is no litter tray inside some cats might struggle under those circumstances. My cat just goes out in the rain and it doesn't bother him but it depends upon the individual cat.

There many other reasons why a cat stops using the litter tray such as it is the wrong size, it doesn't smell or feel right, it is next to the food bowls, it is not clean or it has been super-cleaned (which removes the natural scent of the cat) or the cat is old and infirm and doesn't care any more or has difficulty using it.

RELATED: Cat litter trays should face north or south.

It may be suitable in some instances albeit in my opinion quite rare instances for a cat to be retrained and you can do this by using a retraining pen. The idea is that you create a restricted area for the cat which is about 30 inches wide, 30 inches deep and about 26 inches high. You can buy foldup ones online, apparently.

Inside the pen you place bedding and a litter tray. The theory is that domestic cats hate soiling their bedding and will do anything to avoid it. The only alternative is to use the litter tray which is close by. You should eliminate medical reasons for inappropriate elimination first before trying this. You place the pen in a quiet location where this privacy. There should be access to seeing normal household activity.

If your cat has defecated and urinated in the home inappropriately those areas should be thoroughly cleaned using an enzyme cleaner beforehand. Otherwise, cats tend to go back to those areas because they regard them as toilets. You should also ensure that your cat finds the substrate acceptable and the size of the tray should be appropriate. I discussed litter tray size in another article which you can read by clicking on this link.

RELATED: Litter Box Intimidation. Help Please.

The problem I have with this system is deciding when to put your cat inside the pen! But on the basis that you can decide, you put your cat inside the pen and wait for him/her to be forced to use the litter tray. When they do so you praise them.

It seems that you leave your cat inside the pen except for play and meals. That seems rather harsh to me (and impractical?) but perhaps the retraining pen is a last resort. You have to use it for 1 to 2 weeks to overcome any problems of your cat urinating where you don't want him/her to urinate.

Reasons female cats pee on things

The reasons why a female cat might pee on things are the same reasons that a male cat might be on things. The question is one of Google's predictive questions meaning that they ask questions for you in the belief that they know what you want to ask.

Stress is a factor in inappropriate peeing. Image: MikeB.

I'm going to interpret the word "pee" very widely to include urinating and spraying. Clearly, female cats are just as likely to eliminate inappropriately as male cats. Therefore, if they don't pee in the litter box it may be because the substrate i.e. the litter material, is not a good match for that cat. Domestic cats do have a preference or they can object to a certain litter material. Declawed cats pee outside the litter tray 6 times more often than non-declawed cats. Tender feet and stress are the cause?! Or the litter tray might be in the wrong position. 

Or in a multi-cat household she may be bullied and therefore is forced to urinate outside the litterbox because she is forced off it i.e. there are not enough litter trays. Or the bullying may cause her to feel stressed and anxious.

On the subject of anxiety and stress, it can lead to what is called feline idiopathic cystitis (FIC) which is cystitis caused by no known cause except the cause is going to be stress and anxiety. If you combined that mental state with a permanent diet of dry cat food there is a possibility that the cat will develop urinary tract problems and a bacterial infection which leads to cystitis. The major cause of FIC is conflict with another cat in the home.

Male cats are more prone to cystitis because of their anatomy, however.

Female cats do spray urine just like males but less so. They are territorial like male cats. They have their own home range. But they don't defend it so aggressively compared to males. That is probably why people ask whether female cats do spray urine. Urine spraying is like a calling card as it tells are the cats that this is the resident cat's home range.

The matter of a home range is relevant to multi-cat households as well because the home ranges are much compressed which is one reason why without careful management the cats can become stressed or a timid cat can become stressed and spray.

The bottom line in answering the question as to the reasons why a female cat might pee inappropriately or spray is because of cystitis, stress and anxiety and/or defending a home range. Of these 3, the most common will be stress as it can lead to cystitis and spraying. Separation anxiety is a factor here too.

Feral cats have lower incidence of cystitis compared to domestic cats. This is probably because they are less emotionally stressed but they are probably more physically stressed.

It's always the smell that exposes homes where there are too many cats

Pretty well every time that a person is exposed for having too many cats it is because a foul odour emanates from their home and a neighbour picks it up and complains to the authorities. It's about the person who owns a lot of cats being unable to manage. And the smell is of urine and perhaps faeces. It is an ammonia smell (urine). Which means that some of the cats are urinating inappropriately and perhaps defecating inappropriately as well. Or, it means that the person in charge is not cleaning out the litter trays properly. Both of these things are happening simultaneously. For the cats they are urinating appropriately by the way. Let's get that straight.

What it looks like in a home with too many cats. Chaos and massive smells. Singapore cat hoarder seeks help. Photo: Instagram page of the rescue who is helping her: Cats of Anchor Vale.

It is likely to be the former because if you have 20 cats in a home there are going to be stresses between the cats leading to inappropriate elimination. It will also potentially lead to spraying to mark territory which still happens even when cats are sterilised. When cats are boxed together like this in a very small space, they cannot enjoy the normal amount of space that domestic cats require which in my estimation is going to be a number of acres. 

Of course, domestic cats are adaptable and they can get used to living with much smaller territories (home ranges as they are called) but instinctively, given the freedom to enjoy a natural home range it would be much larger than can be provided inside a home with many other cats. This results in stresses among some cats.

The foul smell that emanates from these homes which is picked up by neighbours is waste product produced by the cats lying around the home which the person is unable to cope with. It is a carelessness in adopting too many cats combined with that same carelessness in being unable to manage the cats to the point where there is no smell in the home. Can you imagine that? I home in which there are 15 cats, let's say, and no smell. Is it possible to achieve that? It is and it has been achieved.

On December 23, 2019 I wrote about a man who has 15 cats and 22 litter boxes. His home smells perfectly! His name is Peter Cohen and he lives in a beautiful Californian home.

If you read the article, the first point that you will notice right away is that he has 22 litter boxes and 15 cats. This is in line with Jackson Galaxy's advice that there should be more litter boxes than cats. And Cohen puts litter boxes in closets i.e. an enclosed space and critically, because he is a builder and knows how to do this, he creates a negative air pressure inside the litter box closets by running a ventilation fan around the clock which sucks the air from the spaces to the exterior.

Finally, I presume that the air sucked out is pushed up through the roof because there'd be no point in pushing smelly air left and right of the house into neighbour's properties.

So, that's how you do it. And, you know what, the sort of systems that Mr Cohen has set up are going to prove impossible for the typical owner of many cats. Therefore, I have to conclude that if you have 15 or 20 cats living full-time inside a typical home it's going to be impossible to keep the smell down unless you have a huge amount of energy, time, commitment, and intelligence and building skills. If I'm correct in that assessment, it tells us that there must be an upper limit in the number of cats that a person can reasonably manage when they are confined to the home.

And here is the clincher: they have to be confined to the home. If they are allowed to wander around outside of the home the neighbours will complain anyway. Cat hoarders always confine their cats to the home. And they don't bother to build an enclosure in the garden because I guess that would also expose their activities to neighbours. They try and keep things secret, away from the prying eyes of neighbours. This of course exacerbates the problem making it impossible to stop massive odours building up.

And they have to open the window sometimes and in doing this the odour escapes. Because the odour is so pungent even small amounts of this air gets into neighbours' properties. It just depends how tolerant the neighbours are as to whether they complain or accept it.

I am therefore drawn to the only sensible conclusion which is that local authorities must have bylaws restricting the number of cats that a person can own to around five. This, I think, is a reasonable number which is manageable. And this rule will apply to any country anywhere. Although most of the news about cat hoarding comes from America it does not mean that cat orders only live in America, it happens anywhere. It's just that most cat news comes from America because they love their cats which, by the way, makes it very strange that they declaw them, an act which is totally against love between species.

How Do I Know If My Cat Is Stressed?

Perhaps a good starting point is to know what kind of environment a domestic cat should live in which is ideal and within which a cat should not become stressed.  If, then, the environment is not ideal, it is possible that the cat might be stressed.

An ideal environment for a domestic cat is one that is secure, calm, without too much noise and without stressful interactions from either people, strangers, other cats or other companion animals.  In addition the cat should not be punished but all training should be carried out through positive reinforcement if the owner really wants to train her cat.

Shelters are stressful places for cats.

There should be no abuse, obviously.  The cat should be free of pain because pain causes stress.  The cat should be well fed.  The cat should be healthy and free of disease and parasites etc..  The environment should be stimulating for a cat.  It's what the experts called an enriched environment.  This is because boredom can also cause stress and the more natural a place is in respect of normal intellectual stimulation that a cat would encounter in the wild, the more healthy and de-stressed the cat will be.

As can be seen there are quite a lot of things to think about when creating an ideal environment for the domestic cat.  The classic thing that could cause a cat to be stressed is a background threat of some sort, either from another animal or a person.

A stressed cat would probably demonstrate a change in normal behaviour.  In order to be aware of the change in normal behaviour the cat's owner obviously needs to know what normal behaviour is for this individual cat.  There is therefore quite a lot of necessary observation required in order to know how one's cat behaves normally and then to measure any changes against that.

Specific sorts of behaviour that a cat might demonstrate when stressed would be: over-grooming, usually in easily accessible places like the belly.  Hiding is another form of behaviour that indicates a cat is stressed.  Incidentally, every cat needs a place to hide so the owner of the cat should ensure that such a place exists in the household.  In addition it is useful even necessary to have some vertical spaces meaning places that a cat can climb to, to feel secure.  Height brings security.

A stressed cat might also engage in inappropriate elimination.  There are many reasons for inappropriate elimination and one of them could be a feeling of insecurity and the need to mark territory either through spraying or even defecation.

A stressed cat might also become irritable and more aggressive than usual.  The form of aggression would probably be defensive aggression because the cat would feel a need to be defensive in what would seem to the cat to be a hostile environment or at least an environment that was not calm or secure.

I suppose, a stressed cat might decide to leave.  It is not uncommon for a cat to leave the family home and find another home that feels better.  Sometimes cats which are what I call time-share cats (sharing more than one home) eventually decide to stay at one home which may not be the original home.

A cat who is subservient to another in a household without a secure place to go to will be stressed. Problems can occur at feeding stations and at cat litter trays.

Stress can lead to ill-health. Cats at shelters are exposed to stress and contagious diseases.

The above are some initial thoughts on the matter which I have written about without reference to any web page or book.  You might like to add to the list if you have time to comment.

Cat Urinating and Defecating in the Wrong Place

Dealing with a cat who poops and pees in the wrong place is largely a matter of common sense. There is, however, a difference between the reasons behind defecating and urinating in the wrong place.

If a cat is urinating in the wrong place there are two equally important reasons that this. The first thing to do is to check whether your cat has a health problem. Typically a health problem that results in a cat urinating in the wrong place is an infection of the urinary tract. Cystitis is a typical feline infection that causes him or her to urinate in inappropriate places. Cystitis is a bacterial infection of the bladder. You should, therefore, see your veterinary surgeon first before taking steps to try and stop your cat from your urinating in inappropriate places. You need to make sure that your cat is healthy before moving on to the next phase.

On the basis that your cat is healthy, you should then make sure that her litter tray is always clean. That invariably means cleaning it daily at least. Then you should check that the material used is acceptable to your cat. That will mean changing it to see whether it makes any difference. Then you should check that the tray is in the right place. The tray should not be in a busy location. Choose somewhere quiet and out of the way. Change its position and see what happens.

On the assumption that you have the right material in the tray, the right position of the tray and the tray is clean, if your cat still refuses to use the tray you should ask yourself whether declawing your cat is a factor. We know that declawed cats, because of tenderness in their claws, can have difficulty in using conventional material. This problem probably goes away after a while but it is a point worth checking.

Urinating in the wrong place is not the same thing as spraying which is marking territory. I'm sure you are aware of what that means. Normally male or female domestic cats do not spray vertically against objects in the home. Cats that have not been neutered are more likely to mark territory by spraying horizontally. A cat owner should accept it as normal. If they cannot accept it they should get their cats neutered. Therefore, owners should be aware of the difference between marking territory through spraying and urinating in inappropriate places.

Cats also mark territory by defecating at a certain place. This happens less often than urinating against a vertical object. Incidentally, cats also mark territory by rubbing their bodies against objects including very typically the sides of their face where there are glands that secrete a liquid that is then deposited on the object.

However, a cat may defecate on places such as your bed. This is a form of marking territory and an expression of stress because marking territory is a reassuring process. Accordingly, if your cat is defecating in inappropriate places you should ask yourself whether there are reasons why your cat is stressed. This may be because you are absent a lot. Incidentally, stress is also behind urinating in the wrong place due to cystitis.

There are also health reasons why your cat may defecate in inappropriate places. For example, your cat may be incontinent. You will clearly need to take your cat to your veterinary surgeon for a health check before asking yourself whether things that you do, your behaviour, is causing the problem.

These then are, in basic terms, the underlying reasons why a cat may defecate and urinate in the wrong place. There are many articles on this website which deal with this subject, which is one of the most typical so-called behavioural problems that people complain about in relation to their cat companion.

The key to resolving these problems is to check health first then your behaviour and patterns of behaviour second, particularly in relation to whether it causes your cat to be stressed.

It is important to do one's best to avoid resorting to drugs such as Valium and Prozac, mood enhancers that can help cats, before dealing with simple a more healthy issues first. Using mood enhancing drugs is a last resort for both people and cats.

Cats naturally look to a litter tray to defecate and urinate before using any other area in the home. Therefore, you could argue that if a cat defecates or urinates on household furnishings it is because he or she is being forced to do so. It will be a natural consequence of the circumstances under which he finds himself and therefore we could logically say that it is not inappropriate from the cat's perspective.

Most Common Cat Behavior Problems

A discussion about the most common cat behavior problems. First we must recognise the fact that cat behavior problems are problems from the point of view of people. Often a behavior problem is normal behavior for a domestic cat that a person does not like; not strictly speaking a cat behavior problem. In fact, that is the default scenario. I know that obvious fact is hard for some people to digest, but it's true.

My research indicates that it is difficult to rank cat behavior problems as there is not enough widespread available research. In any case if the true problem is about our perceptions, likes and dislikes, all we are doing is ranking what we don't like about domestic cat behavior.

In no particular order the most common cat behavior problems referred to Pet Behavior Counsellors (APBC), a UK organisation were:

• Indoor marking behavior - this will be spraying urine and depositing feces. Feces are used by wild cat species to mark territories. Domestic cats can do it too from time to time for various reasons.
• Aggression towards people. This is particularly unhelpful as often aggression towards a person will be defensive in nature. Accordingly it might be argued that the aggression as caused by the person.
• Aggression towards other cats. This was complained about half as much as aggression towards people. Once again the root cause of this form of cat behavior problem might be traceable back to the person who looks after the cats. If he or she introduces a cat into a multi-cat household that upsets the hierarchy leading to inter cat aggression it could be said that the problem is a human one.
• Difficulties with house training.
• Attention seeking.
• Self-mutilation (one cause: separation anxiety). This is often caused by stress and stress can be caused by an inappropriate environment created by a person. The point I keep making is that cat behavior problems are not free-standing but often a reaction to something we did.
• Of the purebred cats the Siamese and Burmese (related cat breeds by the way) were the most represented in respect of cat behavior problems. This does not automatically mean that these breeds are the worst behaved. It might mean there are more Burmese and Siamese cats in circulation. They are popular cat breeds especially the Siamese.

A study published in 2000  and 2001 (Bradshaw et al and Casey respectively) compared:

1. data collected from questionnaires given to English people living in the south of England with:
2. a diagnostic review from the USA.

Certain cat behavior problems were "over-represented" meaning occurring more than average. These were:

1. House soiling which includes inappropriate elimination and marking. Inappropriate elimination is a litter box/stress problem while marking is deliberate territory marking and
2. Aggression towards people and other cats.

Cat behavior problems that were under-represented were scratching and fearful behavior.

The studies produced different results to the APBC referrals. This is partly put down to differences in cat caretaker knowledge of cat behavior. Also people will seek help for problems such as house soiling as it causes a lot of disruption in a person's home.

Cat Inappropriate Elimination - Whose Problem?

We cause cat inappropriate elimination. Therefore, it is our problem. It is not a "cat behavior problem" but a human-to-cat relationship problem. In the wild,  the small wildcat will defecate and urinate in certain areas on the ground, on the earth. Sometimes these areas are used as markers to tell other cats of their presence - the feces remain uncovered. Cat spraying is not inappropriate elimination as the purpose of cat spraying is to give signals to other animals of the presence of the cat. The purpose is not to eliminate the urine.

The domestic cat is required by us to defecate and urinate on cat litter in a tray inside a house or some other human structure. From the cat's perspective the litter will usually be a nice place to go to the toilet because litter replicates earth. In the old days, before litter was invented, sand was used. This is why cats don't usually need training to use cat litter.

However, from the cat's perspective litter might not be a nice place to go to the toilet. The cat might prefer somewhere else. If the cat is a full-time indoor cat the only other place is somewhere that is inappropriate for us not the cat. We have the problem. From our perspective this is our problem. From the cat's perspective this is not a problem except that he or she can't find a decent alternative to litter inside a house.

If the cat is an indoor/outdoor cat he or she would almost certainly go outside and use the earth outside as an alternative to cat litter. Earth is actually better than litter as it is softer and exactly the kind of substance a cat would use in the wild.

So when a cat does not wish to use the litter box the problem is ours as we created it in the first place. The cat is simply acting naturally and reacting to the circumstances that exist before him or her.

This argument applies even if the cat is not using the litter due to anxiety, for example. The reason is unimportant. One well known reason for a cat's avoidance of litter is because it is uncomfortable to a declawed cat. This is a double human problem, one compounding the other.

The reason why I am writing this is because I sense that throughout all the many thousands of articles on inappropriate elimination on the internet and in books, the problem is perceived as belonging with the cat. The cat is seen to be at fault. He or she needs to be punished etc. for this "bad behavior".

Wrong, obviously.  Sometimes, there is a terribly arrogant approach to cat caretaking and so called "experts" are often the most guilty. The cat behaviorists - a trendy new occupation - are in fact "human behaviorists" as all their work concerns changing the behavior and habits of people!

Think on...

Related articles:

Avoiding cat behavior problems

Stopping inappropriate elimination



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Stopping the Inappropriate Elimination of Cats

The are an endless number of articles about stopping the inappropriate elimination of cats as it is most common reason for people to give up their cats to rescue centers. Firstly, I should like to differentiate between inappropriate elimination and territorial marking (spraying for hormonal reasons which can largely be stopped through neutering). The latter is not the subject of this post although it can be highly inappropriate for people.

Also, inappropriate elimination can be due to medical reasons (e.g. urinary tract infections such as cystitis), anxiety marking and/or not liking the litter box. If a neutered cat is spraying it is probably due to anxiety and the cause of that is probably something that we are involved in (e.g. letting stray cats wander in). If the cause of the anxiety cannot be identified vets sometimes prescribe Prozac incidentally, which has a high success rate (but which I find rather sad to be honest).

This post is about stopping the inappropriate elimination of cats for cat litter reasons.

Inappropriate elimination has been described as the use of places in the home that are not suitable (outside the litter box) rather than as a communication signal in territorial marking. In this form of going to the toilet, cats often deposit one of the two forms of excrement in the litter box and inappropriately use another place for the other form.

Some factors that cause inappropriate elimination that are litter box related:

• unclean litter box
• not enough litter boxes for the cats in the home
• the litter box design
• the type of litter (scented litters are sometimes dislikes by cats although we might like them)
• Plastic liners to the box
• chemical odors that linger in the box from cleaning it (e.g. chlorine)
  

These are called "initiating factors". This means that these are factors that start the problem (for us) of inappropriate elimination. These factors cause the cat to become averse to using the litter box and using another location. Lets remember that to us it is a litter box but for the cat it is just one area of the home to go to the toilet. Over time the cat becomes habituated to using the wrong area and the presence of the urine or feces makes the area acceptable and usual. This is a reinforcing process.

Once all medical, hormonal and anxiety related problems are resolved the way to break the cycle and to build a method for stopping the inappropriate elimination of cats is to:

1. Make the litter box as pleasant as possible for the cat in question. This puts a stop to one of the initiating factors;
2. Change the type of box to find a suitable one and;
3. Alter the type of location may be varied and;
4. Alter the type of litter;
5. Clean the litter box frequently. The frequency of litter cleaning should be increased to one or twice daily. This tackles one reason for inappropriate elimination: an unclean litter tray;
6. Make the area where inappropriate elimination is taking place as unpleasant for the cat. This can be achieved by covering area with smooth plastic or placing food in the area for example (changed significance);
7. Use special odor eliminators in the area of inappropriate elimination. This is important too. Zero Odor is one example, there are others such as Nature’s Miracle.
8. Use positive reinforcement with food treats when going to the litter will help.

Some people take their cats to the vet for putting down because they are incapable of stopping the inappropriate elimination of cats, which as can be seen is really our problem. Following these techniques can save cats' lives as there is a success rate in the order of 72%.



From Stopping the Inappropriate Elimination of Cats to Home Page

Major source:

• http://www.psyeta.org
• http://www.tufts.edu

Stopping the Inappropriate Elimination of Cats - Photo: by lynx81(new window) published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License -- this site is for charitable purposes in funding cat rescue.