Litter box problems

by Tim
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

Hi there,

I have a 14 year old spade cat. Her litter box has been kept in one of our spare bedrooms for over 3 years. About 3 months ago, we moved her litter box from the spare bedroom into the computer room. She has had no problem urinating inside her litter box, however, in the last week she has starting "acting out" and leaving feeces on the carpet in rooms other than the previous or current location of her litter box.

Are there any insights that you can give us to fix this behaviour so that she passes all of her bowl movements in the litter box and not on the carpet?

Thank you for your time in answering our question.

Sincerely,

The Arnold family

answer by kate
Hi
this behavior is known as Middening and it is similar to when cats use urine to scent there home to either mark there territory to let other cats know or it is used as comforter to the cat. Ie it makes the home smell more like them.

If this is just a behavior and not caused by illness then it needs to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible. I have written a page about middening and how to try and deal with it. Here is the link https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-poo.html

best wishes Kate

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