Cat suddenly not using litterbox?

arborgold

Hi everyone,

Thought I'd check in here for a bit of advice.

I have to female bengals kittens who are now about 9 1/2 months old. Over the past month or so, one of the kittens (and only one, the F5) has starting repeatedly poo-ing outside of the box. She's still (THANKFULLY) using the box to pee, but will stand right next to the box to poo.

Any suggestions on what might be the problem? I did notice the other day that she had started to act like she was going to the bathroom, so I jumped up to stop here, and decided to clean the box (it's regularly cleaned twice a day), and as soon as I took the lid off, she jumped in.

Is it possible that as she's grown, she's started to feel as if the box is too small?

ETA: Like I mentioned, the box is a large covered pan, and I'm using World's Best multicat. 

cs026a

I'm not sure how large of a cat she is, but bengals are known to get pretty big, right? She may want a larger box or an uncovered box.

I'd buy a couple more boxes, place one right next to the old box, and put a whole new one in a different location in the house. Perhaps the other female cat is being bossy as well? Giving them two separate locations may help. 

 

mainerocks

cs026a:

I'm not sure how large of a cat she is, but bengals are known to get pretty big, right? She may want a larger box or an uncovered box.

I'd buy a couple more boxes, place one right next to the old box, and put a whole new one in a different location in the house. Perhaps the other female cat is being bossy as well? Giving them two separate locations may help. 

 

Pretty much what she said. Also, read Cat vs.Cat regardless... great book for anyone with more than one cat.  

Kaiene

mainerocks:

cs026a:

I'm not sure how large of a cat she is, but bengals are known to get pretty big, right? She may want a larger box or an uncovered box.

I'd buy a couple more boxes, place one right next to the old box, and put a whole new one in a different location in the house. Perhaps the other female cat is being bossy as well? Giving them two separate locations may help. 

 

Pretty much what she said. Also, read Cat vs.Cat regardless... great book for anyone with more than one cat.  

Ditto. 

LuckyAngel07

mainerocks:

cs026a:

I'm not sure how large of a cat she is, but bengals are known to get pretty big, right? She may want a larger box or an uncovered box.

I'd buy a couple more boxes, place one right next to the old box, and put a whole new one in a different location in the house. Perhaps the other female cat is being bossy as well? Giving them two separate locations may help. 

 

Pretty much what she said. Also, read Cat vs.Cat regardless... great book for anyone with more than one cat.  

Ditto all that, and consider adding some Cat Attract little if the problem doesn't resolve with those steps. One of our cats started pooping next to the box several months ago, and the behavior has nearly completely stopped (there's still the occasional incident) with the addition of the Cat Attract on top of our regular litter. 

KatiesCats

Hi there!  Definitely try adding another box.  I'm not sure if the existing one is covered or not, but an issue we had is that our fatty couldn't get all the way into the covered box without getting stuck, so he stopped using it.  Maybe a different type of box would help?

kellbell1919

If you have two cats you need at least two boxes.  My cats would riot if they were sharing one litterbox...