Kitten help needed!!!

dan_d

Hey folks, I've a quick question.We have a 5 month old kitten who came to us at 8 weeks fully litter trained.We've never had a problem with her before in that regard, however in the last week she's started to do it (no. 2 only!) on the tiles in a corner of the kitchen. The litter box is cleaned out every second day...I mean fully cleaned,washed,replace the litter etc, and in between it's topped up.I just do not understand why she's doing this all of a sudden, and I really don't know what to do to stop it.She's not unhappy or anything and she's a very affectionate little cat and gets a lot of (too much!) attention. I'd really appreciate any suggestions or solutions,because I don't want her to get into a habit of thinking this is okay, and to start doing it in other areas of the house.
Thanks!

boomerang

It could just be that she feels safer doing her business in that corner of the room - cats feel pretty vulnerable when they're toileting. Is the litter tray in a busy part of the room where there's a lot of footfall? Try moving the litter tray to that corner where she is doing her number twos and I am sure she will use it there. Do you pick the poo out of the litter tray every day? If not she may be extra fastidious and doesn't want to poo on poo!

biko

As suggested, put the box where she goes. Perhaps leave a little poo behind so she gets the idea that this is the toilet.
I only scrub the litter box once a week and have no issues.

By the way, my previous kitty box was a tray and I grew tired of getting tiny fragments of poo and litter everywhere around it (even some on the wall behind it) so I bought a bucket and carved out a hole about 3 inches up. That minimised the litter outside it.

dan_d

Thanks for the suggestions!Well, the tray is behind the kitchen door, which is open all the time; it has a wall on 2 sides of it, and a door on the 3rd, so it's quite well hidden. I'll try moving it anyway. Thing is though, she uses the litter box aswell!It's like she sort of decides in the middle of the day she wants a change of scenery or something, so she goes to a different corner. Also the first time she did it, it was in 2 corners....She's on her own most of the day, and there's only 2 of us in the house otherwise, so I'm not entirely sure if the footfall would be bothering her.
I know cats can be peculiar in their ways, I'm very used to them, but this is bewildering to me!Any other ideas out there? I'm just not sure if it's just something she's decided to do, or if it's because of us or what it might be!

mary123

Maybe leave that tray where it is and get another and put it where she also goes.

Themadhouse

The first think i would do is get her vet checked. This should always be done first with a change in behaviour. Otherwise she might not like where the tray is for some reason so try placing it elsewhere. Scoop the tray out daily. Once a week is plenty for a full wash out. what do u wash it out with? Have u changed to something new? There might still be a scent of whatever it is. Has she been wormed lately?

The Sweeper

It's not unusual to have a couple of small accidents wtih your pet kitten when they're young. It can literally be anything that sets them to use a new area for a toilet - a disturbance using the existing litter tray can be a big issue. Once they've used a new area once, they will return to it if there is still a smell of their previous poop or wee in that area.

Pick a pine-scented cleaner and clean and disinfect the tile area. Then wipe with a tiny bit of lavender oil. Otherwise put a second litter tray out for her - not necessarily where she was using the tiles, if that's an inconvenient location - choose another, more handy spot, and show her the litter tray there.

julesdub

Hey dan_d, I feel your pain. My cat started to do a similar thing last week. For no apparent reason he started to urinate outside of his litter tray. Like you we clean our litter tray every day, and the cat gets LOTS of attention. He peed on our bed 3 times!!! (Horrible, I know!) We brought him to the vets and he is currently on medication for a possible urine infection (results of urine sample pending!) Hope you manage to get it sorted!:D

cotton

Please don't use pine scented cleaner or lavender oil near a cat or it's toilet - both are toxic to cats.
What are you cleaning the litter box & tiles with?
You might be cleaning the litter box too much & you're not leaving any "cat smell" for your kitten to associate with.
Contradictory I know, but if you're cleaning your tiles with any alkaline substance, it will smell of cat & you're telling your cat to go mark over their smell.
Cats are complicated. Clean any unwanted areas with a non alkaline solution like biological washing powder.
Rinse the tray with boiling hot water & a splash of lemon juice if you're fussy, but not every other day. Scoop instead. Might be no harm giving a second tray too.

Also, regarding the bed - BIG litter tray with your smell! Where else would a cat want to mark that is safe, secure & let everyone know it is his?

The Sweeper

cotton wrote: »

Please don't use pine scented cleaner or lavender oil near a cat or it's toilet - both are toxic to cats.

Cotton, in fairness, a dilute solution of a pine-scented cleaner used to wipe down a surface that then dries off, plus a couple of drops of lavender oil put on a tissue and that tissue wiped over a surface, certainly is not toxic to a cat.

They don't like the smell of either particularly, and it will deter them from using an area again.

galah

she might not like the litter you use anymore? Sometimes, cats get fussy, and the litter might hurt her paws...

Or she needs to go too urgently to make it to the litterbox? (our little kitten did that the other day - she was a bit groggy from getting her vaccinations, and didn't make it to the litterbox - and decided to pee in the organic veg bag in the kitchen instead. Nice....)

julesdub

Thanks for all the suggestions. Vet called this morning to say cat has cystitis, hopefully the antibiotics will help sort him out:D

dan_d

She did it again yesterday! In a different corner. I'd understand if she couldn't get to the litter on time, but she has to PASS the litter to get to these corners.She's fully wormed, has all her injections, and is very healthy.She uses the litter during the day, then seems to decide to go in the corner as a whim or something! I only use boiling water to scrub the floor...I was using a small amount of diluted dettol, but I wasn't sure if that was good or bad, so I stopped.
Any ideas at all?I'm beginning to get irritated with coming home everyday to a present in the corner of the kitchen. It's not exactly something you can explain to a cat (!), and I wouldn't lay a finger on her for doing it, but how do I get the message across that it's not okay to do that?

Oh and I clean the tray with water only. I've never used anything else on it.

The Sweeper

There's no point cracking it at the cat afterwards, because it won't associate the puddle on the floor with its own bad behaviour - but in fairness you know that already.

Look, people are a bit over-cautious about the whole 'essential oils are toxic to cats' thing. Yes, they can and will be, especially if you apply them neat, directly to the cat itself, (NEVER do this - to your cat OR to yourself) or if you burn large amounts of them in oil burners in areas that the cat frequents. This is because cats can absorb the oils through their skin and respiratory system, and a cat's liver isn't equipped to eliminate toxins the way a human's liver is.

However, similarly to those drop-on-pipettes that are used to treat fleas in cats, the ones that have "do not allow your cat to ingest this, as it can be toxic to your cat!" - I have a number of cats who groom each other, and I raised my concern with the vet about them getting some of the mixture off each other's fur when they mutually groom. I was told that they'd have to ingest the entire pipette straight up for it to even start causing problems, and the warning is there because some geniuses think that topically administered flea treatments can also be squeezed over the cat's food.

What's the point of this, you say? The point is that a dilute pine scented disinfectant - the sort of flash pine you would normally dilute in a bucket and wash your tiles with - is perfectly safe to use in the vicinity of your cat. So are one or two drops of lavender oil smeared on a surface as a deterrant (not heated in an oil burner to disperse though). It would have to be a pretty odd cat to suddenly start drinking the stuff, and you need something better than boiling water to lift the scent of the cat's own urine - because that's what she's coming back to again and again to pee in the corner of your kitchen.

Here are a bunch of suggestions. If you let me know which ones you have tried we can try to narrow it down.

1. As mentioned above, have you brought the kitten to the vet to make sure she doesn't have a urinary tract infection? As with julesdub's cat, she may have cystitis?
2. Try changing your cat litter. If you use low-odour litter or one with a masking scent, try changing to a plant-based low-dust unscented litter - the plant granules are highly absorbant and that helps to regulate litter smells.
3. Try sheltering the litter tray. First, try with a cardboard box - put one just big enough to fit the litter tray on it's side, and put the litter tray in it. See if that helps.
4. Have you anything near the litter tray that could be upsetting or interrupting her? A washing machine, anything smelly stored there like gym gear? Your runners? A glade plug-in air freshener? Outdoor clothing or boots or shoes? A radiator that gets too warm and makes the cat uncomfortable?
5. After you've cleaned the areas your kitten is using for "inappropriate elimination" (to use the shorthand official term), leave a sheet of tinfoil on the floor in each corner to deter her from going there again. Cat's don't like tinfoil - too shiny and too crackly to walk on. This may or may not work, but you can but hope.
6. Get her a second litter tray. Some cats, believe it or not, like to pee in one and poo in the other.
7. If you already have multiple trays, go mad, take ALL of her litter trays away, and set one single tray up in a totally new area, away from all noises and interruptions. Introduce her to the tray in that area and if you can, close the door and leave her in there with the tray for a while. (If your'e going to do this, you need to make sure you need to remove all evidence of former trays in their previous locations. Don't even leave a crumb of litter on the floor where they were.)
8. Try buying a feliway diffuser (synthesised cat facial pheromones that generate a feeling of calm and well-being, you plug it into a socket like a Glade air freshener type thing) and use as directed on the box.
9. Try making a change to the kitten's routine - feed her at a different time, or make a small change or introduction to her food - anything to distract her. Buy her a new toy or toys.
10. Put something else in the corners while you're out - a soda bottle filled with water (heavy, hard to move), an empty plastic laundry basket, an empty bucket or basin - just some large object that's in the way.

What, if anything, have you tried, or are you just cleaning it up as it happens and praying she'll quit it?

cotton

In fairness I'm not being over cautious. I run a cat rescue (Kitten adoption) & I've seen what "a wee bit" or "diluted" can do. Kittens gasping for breath, adult cats having respiratory problems. Cats' livers are simply not the same as humans' livers, and they lack the ability to properly metabolize the various compounds in essential oils, especially lavender. Disinfectants containing phenol are extremely toxic to cats. Phenol may be ingested by a cat after he walks through a disinfectant and then starts grooming himself.
Washing out is simply not enough. I've used the typical flash pine disinfectant, diluted & then rinsed. Then ended up in ucd as a direct result according to UCD with not one but two of my cats.
It is NOT perfectly safe to use in the vicinity of your cat.
Op, you'll always get advice on boards but it might not be right. Please listen to the people that know what they are talking about & have the experience.

The Sweeper

Cotton, genuinely out of interest, what were you doing with the disinfectant and how much of it did you use, and how diluted was it?

PS: I'm happy to withdraw all recommendations of pine/lavender products - I use them and my local shelter uses some of them, to no detriment of any of our collective cats, but we only use them in certain ways and only very diluted and in small amounts, but I do recognise there may be a risk through misuse or overuse or even just plain old different use of these products. (Just because I shut my moggies away until the floor has dried, for instance, doesn't mean everyone would even think of doing it.)

dan_d

Okay. I'm going to try the tinfoil thing, or putting something in the corners. I actually feel that it's more to do with her just being fastidious.She has a quota she'll do in the litter, and no more. She had a clean litter box again yesterday and everything was fine. Nothing has changed around her at all recently, except that she's started to do this.
As for floor cleaners...I have to mop the kitchen floor anyway, because it gets grubby, so I keep her away until it dries. She has an unhealthy interest in water, spends her whole time climbing into the basins and shower tray and bath (while empty) to chase water coming out of the taps, so I feel she would be liable to lick up floor cleaner. From a hygiene point of view, I think I'll start using a very small amount of very diluted cleaner in those areas again.
Thanks for the advice everyone, hopefully we'll have a breakthrough!

The Sweeper

If she loves running water, you could be shamelessly extravagant and buy her a drinking fountain? There are different brands, basically it's a plug-in fountain with a water filter and a reservoir for up to a litre of water - just keeps circulating it to keep it cool and aerated so the cat will drink more water (dehydration can be a problem with cats fed on dried kibble). Might be another distraction...

MsFifers

dan_d wrote: »

She has a quota she'll do in the litter, and no more. She had a clean litter box again yesterday and everything was fine.

Ah - just thinking - do you remove the urine soaked litter everytime she goes, or just the solid waste?

My cats are really finniky about their trays and will not use one that has either poo or wee in it. I have a clumping litter so I can easily take out the clumps of weed-on litter as well as the solid waste. This also saves me cleaning the entire tray too often (I do it about once a week or every two weeks).

(BTW some people don't approve clumping litter for small kittens as they can be silly and eat it or lick it off their paws, and it then blocks their intestines. But even if you dont use a clumping litter, you should still be able to dig out the weed on litter as it usually goes a different colour.)

Finally - I have heard that white vinegar removes the urine smell, so you can try washing the floor areas she has used as a toilet with this, and hopefully it will remove the association for her.

galah

dan_d wrote: »

She had a clean litter box again yesterday and everything was fine.

I think that's your solution right there. Clean the litter more often, maybe even provide a second tray (if you haven't already), and see if that resolves the problem altogether!

dan_d

I'm resigned to spending a fortune on cat litter.The box is emptied and cleaned every second day, and in between we clean it and top it up....but if that's what I've to do so I don't have to clean poo off the floor when I come home, then that's what I'll do!!I'll pass on the water fountain suggestion if that's okay, I can just imagine what she'd do with it...there'd be water everywhere!
By the way we went a second day with no problems.Cats are a complete mystery sometimes!
Thanks for the help!;)