I'm was supposed to write a fun craft post today, but nope. HERE WE ARE.
So there I was, eating breakfast, anticipating a nice big slice of banana bread for dessert, when I happened to glance down the length of our kitchen into the laundry room. There I watched Eva, our resident house panther and my furry heart of hearts, hop into the litter box just out of view. What was NOT out of view, however, was the record-setting arc of cat pee that came jetting out of her at an impossible height, soaking the mat, the floor, and for all I know the opposite wall nearly 6 feet away.
I leapt out of my seat, "No, Eva! Squat! SQUAT, DARN YOU!!"
Rushing over, I found Eva standing proudly erect, tail high, and looking behind her at her STILL gushing stream with what can only be described as gleeful abandon.
I swear she was aiming, you guys.
Her 10 gallon bladder now expended all over my laundry room floor, Eva daintily hopped out of the box, deftly skirting the encroaching flood, and pranced away.
This is the face my soul made.
So here's the thing: Eva has ALWAYS peed standing up. Our theory is she lost her mom and litter mates so young that she just never learned how to Cat properly. (If you're new here, our neighbor found 4-week-old Eva on the highway.)
She was so tiny!
Looking at old kitten pictures to remind myself she's worth it...
Our solution until recently has been to put a lid on the litter box. That mostly worked, but A) the pee still leaked out the seams on the side, and B) she'd pee on the door flap, which she and her sister had to push through to leave again. Ew.
The deal breaker, though, was when her sister Suki got a UTI and discovered she could pee somewhere outside the pee-soaked litter box. Like the door mat. Or our bed.
Even after the UTI was gone, Suki was ruining doormat after doormat (we learned to keep our bedroom door closed). We decided the closed litterbox was perhaps too small for Suki's sensibilities and gigantic Fluff Butt, so maybe that was the problem.
This is when she stole a marshmallow. Look how proud she is, lol.
Exhibit A of the Fluff Butt. As you can see, it is quite large. (Her tail almost never fits all the way in the box, which is a visual TREAT, let me tell you.)
We tried cutting off the very top of the litter box lid to give the girls a skylight, but it didn't seem to help Suki's situation. So we took the lid off again, but left the high walls on that come with a Cat Genie. (The cats love the Genie, and often race to use it first after it cleans, so we're pretty confident the box itself isn't the issue.)
With the lid off Suki is back to using the box full time now, and the higher walls help with Eva's floor irrigation, but here's the on-going problem: the litter box walls dip down at the entry point:
See?
So of course, guess which way Eva aims.
ARRRG.
So now we're thinking John will have to build some kind of giant funnel to attach to our litter box, probably using the coated bathroom paneling you can get at the hardware store. Unless one of you knows how to teach a cat to squat? And if we DO build a funnel, what do we do about the doorway?
So now we're thinking John will have to build some kind of giant funnel to attach to our litter box, probably using the coated bathroom paneling you can get at the hardware store. Unless one of you knows how to teach a cat to squat? And if we DO build a funnel, what do we do about the doorway?
File this under "Things I Never Thought I'd Be Asking 20,000 Strangers On The Internet".
I joked with John that we could try teaching Eva to use the toilet in his bathroom, and the mental image of her perched on a toilet seat and rotating sprinkler-head-style had us cry-laughing. Pretty sure that'd be like teaching a kid not to play with matches by giving her a flame-thrower.
Yes yes, she's adorable.
Christine McConnell said something profound in her latest video that I think is appropriate to end with here:
"Cats ruin everything, but they make the world better."
Words for all cat owners to live by.
Watch this space for the Giant Pee Funnel Build! Woo Woo!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a floor to wash. Again.
Oh, but first: tell me the most ridiculous way your pet has ruined something in the comments! I figure if the story can make someone laugh, then it's not a TOTAL loss, right?
Let's see: there was the foster cat who completely ruined a keyboard by horking on it, and the cat who hates throw pillows and thus would pee on them every. Single. Time. He saw one.
ReplyDeleteOur 'fix' in the past for cats who pee standing up involved extra strength shower curtains tacked to the walls around the boxes, by the way. There is no retraining them, alas.
When I had a cat who got older and no longer was comfortable squatting, we bought a large storage container with high walls to use as a litter box.
ReplyDeleteSomething like this rubbermaid container.
On our first attempt, we cut a hold in the side for her, but she just peed out the hole, so we bought a second one and let her jump in and out.
Place container on floor, pour in litter, all set!
This was going to be my suggestion as we have had a non squatter in the past as well!
DeleteOh and I meant to say, it also works well if you have a cat who kicks a lot of litter out the door when covering their business.
DeleteYou can buy top entry litter boxes, but we just used the storage container, no lid.
https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/litter-box-problems-ask-a-behaviorist
DeleteI was just going to suggest this. I have a fluffbutt cat like Suki and she needs the 14" high sides to keep her tail out of the way when she relieves herself. (She stands on her back legs in a corner and props her elbows on the sides for #2. It's hilarious.) It's important the box be clear - cats like to be able to see around themselves and not feel trapped (which is why many dislike boxes with lids, not to mention their super-sensitive noses.) And she really doesn't scatter any more litter than she would in a regular box.
DeleteI used to have a cat that was a bit like Evi - a stray we took in who didn't know 100% how to cat. He always missed the box on his #2s - would climb in but wouldn't realize his butt wasn't in the box too. I wish I would have thought of the huge container for him. But thankfully he always turned around for his pee.
Same here, we have a non-squatter and she loves peeing all over the plastic walls of the clear container.
DeleteWe had two old-ladies who could no longer squat and one had an enormous fluff-butt... the rubbermaid litterbox hack saved our laundry room and their fluffy lives... because I might have strangled them (not really, I miss them every day) but that was a lot of pee, before we discovered that hack!
DeleteI've also seen litter boxes inside the rubbermaid hacks too... maybe something like that, where there is a cleanable, sanitary container for the litterbox, not your laundry room?
We put litter boxes in the large, clear containers...I have literally watch Lili squat to pee, then straighten her back legs as she goes! And I have pushed her butt back down! The shower curtain thing is good, too - I have that behind the large containers, just in case.
DeleteI am so sorry but I feel your pain, for my cat poops standing up! It's certainly less CATastrophic (haha) than the peeing but has caused a huge set of litter box problems over the years because as she does her poop dance, she would often step out of the box and poo on the floor next to her box. Using a covered box just meant she would ONLY poo outside the box because she couldn't stand if she was inside it. The solution (for now) has been a high-sided box open topped box BUT one of the solutions I considered, and it might work for you, is a vestibule box. The outer box should be highsided (maybe very) and big enough to fit the litter box inside. Then offset the openings (think the offset gates of Helm's Deep). You can even line the outer box with doggie pee pads or old towels to make clean-up easier! It would take a lot of floor space, unfortunately, but might work!
ReplyDeleteThis is what we did for my older cat. "Large" litter boxes from stores fit inside under the bed storage boxes from Rubbermaid just about perfectly side to side but with about a 14" gap around the front. We then slide corragated plastic pieces between the two boxes' sides and lined with puppy pads.
DeleteCat sanitation advice that includes the phrase "the offset gates of Helm's Deep" perfectly encapsulates what makes this blog such an internet treasure.
DeleteI locked eyes with my cat as she gently pushed my cell phone off the microwave directly into her water bowl. That was a fun afternoon hahaha
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, LOL
DeleteMy cat learned to pee and poop while he was small. Now he still stands in the same place in the box, which means at least half the time he poops outside the box.
ReplyDeleteOh man I've been having THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM. My solution so far has been to get a high-sided litter box, duct-tape a sheet of wax paper to the inside to cover the cut out for the entrance, then position that side against the wall. My cat then climbs over the high sides to get into the box, and luckily she's chill about it. I really need to find a more permanent cover for the opening, though, so I don't have to keep replacing the wax paper.
ReplyDeleteI've seen other people using those large plastic storage bins as litter boxes, where they cut out a hole in the lid for a top entry. It's tall enough that you don't get the pee against the seam between box and lid, which has always been my issue with the lidded boxes.
Not cat related, but my foster dog has destroyed four phone chargers by chewing them, often with me watching her. This foster also adores shoes and ate two of my favorite pairs before I learned my lesson.
ReplyDeleteMy dog (not fostered) doesn't like for beds to not have their plush covers and has torn two expensive memory foam dog beds apart while the cover washed. She also has a thing against throw pillows.
I don't know how hilarious this is, but when Harley was one, he knocked my Surface Pro tablet onto the floor, the day before I was going to a conference where I needed it for a PowerPoint presentation. Yes the screen shattered, but it held together enough for me to use it at the conference. Sigh. It's good thing I love that little cat. Lesson learned - *never* leave the tablet open, unless it's being used. *Always* shut it flat on the desk.
ReplyDeleteMy friend has 3 cats and she just uses storage bins without the lid. The cats can get in and out of them easily and its tall enough to stop spraying.
ReplyDeleteMy other Harley story is that while he does squat to use the litter box, it's only after standing his hind legs on the rim and vigorously digging in the box with his front paws. Litter goes everywhere. When he's satisfied that he's made the biggest mess possible, he hops into the box to go. Not quite as bad as cleaning up pee, but still annoying.
ReplyDeleteYep. That's our Esmerelda. HOW does the litter get half way across the room??? Because she's absolutely thorough.
DeleteOh lord. I have had some destructive pets. My family had a dog (Gracie) who liked to eat my pants. She was an 8 lb dog and I'm literally not sure how she managed to eat so much fabric. She would start at the crotch and make it all the way to the knees on both sides.
ReplyDeleteWe had a cat (Ollie) that would shred loaves of bread on the counter. It was a little bitty cat, but would hurl himself at you with enough force to knock over large chairs. Ollie once took a very accidental trip in the dryer, much to my mom's distress, but survived to continue his havoc.
There were cockatiels that peeled wallpaper. Ducks that ate the strawberry patch. Lovebirds that chewed up books. My voice teacher would get tickled every time she saw the perforated edges of my vocal exercise books.
Then apparently my family's place became THE spot in town for stray cats to have babies. SO many kittens to take care of.
We had cats that ate bread too! We thought we had a mouse problem until one of them ate enough plastic that she had to go to the vet.
DeleteI had one too - he would drag it under the bed to eat it. This was 2 decades ago or so, and I still keep bread in the fridge to protect it. :D
DeleteMine is not a just a cat story. To set the scene, let me tell you about the house arrangement at the time. B'Elanna (yes, hello fellow nerds) was an aging dog and confined to the kitchen so that her Cushings induced puddles would be restricted to one easy-clean floor. To keep her from being set free by her sister, Rynna, we had a doodad that blocked the folding door from opening, up at the top of the door. The cat, Gryphon, did not participate in this tale, except by having a cat-door into the laundry room because Rynna loves "tootsie rolls" a little too much. There is also a baby gate on the entry to the play room (that leads to the laundry room) because my older girl needed all the restrictions we could muster to keep her from peeing in carpeted areas.
ReplyDeleteI came home from work one evening, kids in tow. My husband was already cooking dinner in the kitchen. I almost immediately stop in the door. Something was very wrong. So. Very. Wrong. It also might be key to point out at this time that my husband worked at as a kennel tech at the vet for a few years, and lost key ranges in his sense of smell during that time. KEY RANGES, guys. The only thing he noticed when he got home was that Rynna had let B'Elanna out of the kitchen, in spite of the door latch. So queue my CSI piecing of the story:
Rynna, a very prissy and proper and overly smart chow mix/Great White Mutt, was not feeling well. Prissy proper dogs DO NOT soil their home. So she went to the door. Which involved opening the "childproofed" folding door to get into the kitchen. When she could not dig her way through the back door (but did manage to leave some hefty claw marks and a good bit of sawdust), she looked for the other back door. Through the baby gate, into the play room. But no amount of digging and tearing up the plastic cat door could get her into the laundry room and through to the other back door. So alas, the poor girl's tummy said she was out of time, so she went to the hearth rug to let it all go.
My cat Speedy (who is now 16 and has been rechristened Slo-mo) used to zoom around the apartment when she was younger, take a running leap and do hang time on the door jamb before launching herself off again. Sometimes, just for kicks, she'd slowly slide down while gouging her claws into the wood.
ReplyDeleteThe apartment complex had NO IDEA we had a cat. We patched up and repainted the trim as best we could before we left and ended up with a full refund. I can only assume the maintenance guy either didn't care or had a bad case of glaucoma.
TW: Cat Vomit, lots of it.
ReplyDeleteMy cat developed a tumor that blocked the connector between his stomach and his intestines, so his stomach was not emptying in the way nature intended. So he would eat, his tummy would get too full, and he would projectile vomit everywhere. One night, I woke at 3am to the telltale sound of a cat preparing to vomit. He slept in my bed with me, so I wanted to get him off the bed and onto a towel before he let loose. Moving as quickly as only those in fear of imminent vomit can, I FLUNG the covers back to get out of bed and realized about 3 seconds too late that he had already vomited on the bed and I had just flung warm, wet cat barf across pretty much my entire bedroom.
Doubleday learned to open the fridge and stole the turkey leg my step-dad was saving for lunch. Ducked under the tall legged stove and hunkered down to gnaw and growl at humans attempting to remove him and the turkey. Then he stole a jelly doughnut while running thru the house again growling at invisible aliens. Mr.Man (recently departed) liked to parade his litter fringe on his floofy bum at Christmas. As for the peeing - ask the vet about the litter you are using. Some cats don't like the fragrance and may need their OWN litter box. We have 1 box per cat. Try using Simple Solution to remove the pee smell.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sam, you might need a litter box for each cat. ~LST
DeleteSeveral vets I know recommend the "n + 1" rule for litter boxes, where n is the number of cats in question.
DeleteThankfully the girls do OK sharing a box, since adding one would only give Eva another area of the house to irrigate, ha. I think it helps that we have a Cat Genie, which self-cleans several times a day.
DeleteThis post was recced at the bottom of the last Cake Wrecks post I read, very random travel back through time. How did you solve this issue, this non-regular epbot.com reader would honestly like to know. (I'm just here for the cake wrecks, but having 3 feline overlords myself, get sucked into various random cat content all the time.)
DeleteOur Cat Genie bit the dust within a year of this post, so our current solution is what many readers suggested: we use an enormous plastic bin with high walls as a litter box. It's clear so the cats can see what they're jumping into, large enough for Suki's girth, and high enough for Eva's flying pee stream, haha. The major downside is that John has to scoop litter every night, but until an automatic box is big enough for both problems, this is where we're stuck.
DeleteUgh, I feel your pain. Our old lady cat has decided it's too much trouble to actually get in the box, so she very often goes right outside the box. (The cleanliness of the litter doesn't doesn't matter). So I bought one of the enclosed boxes with steps. So she peed on the steps, even after I took the lid off in hopes that was the problem. 🤦♀️ I've now blocked off the steps, and put a doggie pee pad under the box. At least I'm cleaning the floor slightly less often? For your cats, since they're young and able to jump, the storage box solution sounds like it might be a good solution. Though you might have to give up your auto cleaner for that to work. ☹️
ReplyDeleteOh, and worst cat story: we were building the Lego Death Star. All the bags were on the floor, but we had to stop for the night and left a pile of unopened bags. Apparently, one of our cats likes to pee on crinkly plastic, because she had very nicely covered all the bags by morning. She also likes to pee on clean laundry piles. Definitely gives me motivation to fold laundry sooner rather than later!
DeleteHave her checked for arthritis. When Jaime got older, her hips were twisted and that was the reason she went beside the litter box, she couldn't get into it
DeleteSecond story, different cat- I was fostering a friend's cat, who had littler box issues that we thought had to do with sharing a box/not getting along with the other cats. At my house, she was an only, and seemed to do fine with the automatic litter box I had. After she had been with me a few weeks, I discovered that she had peed in my embroidery basket, and had been using my 15th century Italian court gown as a litterbox (it was folded on a couch in my sitting room). The gown I was planning to wear about two weeks after the discovery. Absolutely soaked with pee. I took it to the dry cleaner, which got out most if the ick, but it still smelled. I hung it in my storage room, sprayed it with white vinegar, dumped about 3 boxes of baking soda on it, and left it for a week. Miraculously, the dress survived. The matching cap, not so much. That went into the trash.
ReplyDeleteI woke up this morning to both pairs of my earbuds that came with my iPhones completely chewed to bits and laid out in a lovely display right next to my bed. These were stored in an interior pocket of my purse, which was folded over on my kitchen counter (it's a boho style, so I kind of roll the top over and pull the handle under to keep it closed). When I went in the kitchen, my purse had clearly been moved, but was still folded over so you couldn't access the inside. I have no idea how they managed to get to that interior pocket with the top still folded over...
ReplyDeleteI also have this partial wall between my living room & kitchen that has three tiny pass-through shelves in it. I keep some of my nicer knickknacks there because "the cats can't get to them" as there isn't anything around it that they could get on to in order to reach them. The top shelf has a fake plant next to one of the statues. I came home from work one day to find that fake plant on the floor and torn to shreds. None of the knickknacks were moved or harmed, just the plant on the top shelf. I swear they're like little ninjas!
Ninjas or part poltergeist! >.<
DeleteWe had a female cat who sprayed urine like a male cat if she got irritated. Standing in an upright position, squirting urine in a spray from between the hind legs. Before her, I did not realize females could do that anatomically. I’ve heard it’s similar to a male’s marking territory.
ReplyDelete(She also peed on wet/damp bath mats for some bizarre reason, but that was in a squatting position.)
Back in the magical decade that was the 80s, we had a tuxedo cat named Sprite, the most magnificent cat ever. One year she must have decided that the Christmas tree was her enemy, so she attacked it. And she won. My Dad & I arrived home to see the tree toppled over & Sprite victoriously sitting on top of the step stool that we used to put the topper on. Next up, we had to clean it up. So Dad & I unwrapped the handheld vacuum that we bought for Mom, cleaned up, reboxed & rewrapped the vacuum. On Christmas day we were able to tell Mom how good the vacuum worked. All thanks to Sprite. Damn, I loved that cat...
ReplyDeleteBetween my little brother once picking up the tree from his walker and carrying it away with him (this would have been in the late 60's, so different style of walker for you youngsters), and dogs knocking over the tree, and cats climbing the tree. I didn't realize for many years that most people didn't run guy lines to their Xmas trees and line the bottom branches with bells. But oh the looks you get when you're helping someone figure out where to put their tree and your comment is "you could put the eyebolt in the wall here!"
DeleteYou mean some people DON'T tie their Christmas trees to the wall, ceiling, or curtain rod?!?!?
DeleteLeft our year-old Lab puppy unattended in our carpeted porch for an hour while we went out for breakfast. There also happened to be an unopened 12-pack of soda in there. He tore apart the soda carton and was rolling, chasing, and biting twelve foaming, squirting cans of Diet Coke when we got home from breakfast. He was soooo happy! The carpet was never the same.
ReplyDeleteMy adorable orange fluffball, Ragnar, loves to chomp and scratch any wooden edge or corner in the house. The corners of my dresser and jewelry box are utterly destroyed. His newest obsession is my husband's underwear drawer, which is a rather large, low drawer in a big wooden armoire. Ragnar has learned how to scratch, bite, and pull at it till it opens the tiniest bit. Then he slides his paw inside and starts pulling out the underwear. Every single pair. Twice now I have found a mountain of underwear on the floor next to the armoire and he's just curled up next to it, proud as can be of his hard work. Once I walked in on him in the act, and he froze in place and slowly turned his head around to me, eyes wide with his paw still in the drawer. I wish I had a picture because the look on his face was so, so hilarious. That lil whackadoo is the light of my life.
ReplyDeleteMy Mister Fluff likes to open drawers in our chest of drawers and pull out whatever is in them. He's not the least bit ashamed about it, either. I've caught him in the act bunches of times and all he ever does is look at me like "What?" Of course, I also don't fuss at him for doing it, aside from the not really fussing chiding that I think we all do when it's something cute but also mildly annoying while I'm cleaning up the mess.
DeleteOur cat, Skippy, loved curling ribbon. He was obsessed with the stuff.
ReplyDeleteOne day, we brought home a bunch of helium balloons, with curling ribbon strings, tied to a weight of some sort to keep them contained. We set them down in the dark living room, as hubby and I each ran for the bathroom, as it had been a long trip home. As we were still in the bedroom/bathroom area, we hear this loud crashing. I popped cautiously into the living room area just in time to see a floor lamp topple over... then the other floor lamp topple onto the couch, as the curious cat zoomed past - chased by the helium balloons that he was somehow tangled up in the strings of.
I know he did multiple laps around that room before ducking under something that finally scraped the balloons off of him, wherein he hid for a good hour or so. He had trashed the living room with that bunch of balloons. One lamp never worked the same after that. And I've never laughed so hard, while my husband wondered what in the world was going on, as the whole thing was over quickly, and before he made it into the room.
He hated balloons after that. And never could resist a piece of curling ribbon, even after a few emergency vet visits because of him eating some.
I've heard of people using one of those plastic storage tubs as a giant/deep litterbox...build some little kitty steps inside and out and BADDA BING BADDA BOOM...deep, sunk in, pee containing, high walled box. It might be a pain to actually change the litter though.
ReplyDeleteMy cat almost ruined my fresh, young relationship!
ReplyDeleteI had just started dating my boyfriend and he was laying on my couch one morning, then comes back to bed and says: The cat peed on the couch and a little got on me.
I felt terrible and started asking how it happened. He retold the story a few times and like an onion more details came out... Turns out the cats hadn't peed on the couch and a little got on him. She jumped on his lap, stared in his face, and peed directly on top of him.
It was that day, when my cat defiantly peed on him and he didn't make excuses or run away never to be seen again, that I knew he was the one for me.
OMIGOSH. This is the best love story ever.
DeleteI rather hope your next response was to take kitty to your vet and make sure she didn't have a UTI going on. And kudos on finding the keeper!
DeleteOh god. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying at work at your post and all of these comments.
ReplyDeleteWe have a lovely glass-fronted wood stove in our living room. It (including the door) is made of heavy iron. Now, in the spring/summer, we frequently get birds flying into the chimney looking for a place to nest where they proceed to fall all the way down into the stove, then tap at the glass to be let out. It is always a comedy of errors to get them out of the stove and back outside. We have 3 pomeranian-mix mutts who just LOVE to freak out and bark like crazy when the birds get in there. They are all rescues, and we are pretty sure one was raised by a cat because he does all sorts of cat-things including sprawling out on the back of the couch, catching birds/mice outside, climbing into trees as best he can, etc. Well one day we came home to him sitting by the door with a lump of something in his mouth, proud as punch. It was a bird... head. We walk into the living room and there is blood... feathers... bird bits and wood-stove ashes EVERYWHERE. Couch, carpet, walls, the other 2 dogs. I still to this day have no idea how he got the door open, or how so much mess could come from one little bird.
ReplyDeleteGiant Rubbermaid container - seriously. Like... 100 quarts giant. Build a ramp to the top if you have to!
ReplyDeleteI second the storage tote litter box. We cut a dinner plate size hole in the lid for the entrance/exit. We bought a top entry box, but pee leaked out between the box and the top and ruined our hall carpet.
ReplyDeleteI third the Rubbermaid container, I've got a high pee arc guy and it works great for us.
ReplyDeleteMJ, or 5-year-old male German Shorthair Pointer, recently ate an entire 64-count box of crayons, leaving only the sharpener behind, and pooped rainbows for over a week.
ReplyDeleteAww, he tasted the rainbow! LOL
DeleteDamn, I never thought of that! LOL
DeleteMy sister had a cat growing up that used urine as a weapon. My mom watched her pee down a rodent hole while watching the other hole so see if she flushed it out. She also wanted to go outside one time and we were ignoring her. She walked in front of us, watching tv, and PEED INTO THE VCR. She got her wish REAL quick.
ReplyDeleteEagerly awaiting your solution, we have an old lady whose joints won't let her squat, we put the step stool by the side and NOT the door dip and it's.... mostly working? That or the walls aren't high enough, but if we put the dome on she pees straight out the door.
ReplyDeleteI have no cat story. I just want to affirm breakfast dessert. Every meal needs dessert. Dessert needs dessert.
ReplyDeleteTRUTH. And really, we've all been eating breakfast desserts forever, we just usually call them pancakes/waffles/donuts. :D
DeleteI don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but chances are your girls don't love the genie. They probably hate it. Cats are creatures of territory, and where they pee tells them where their home is. When their leavings behind get cleaned away and the smells are gone, it scares them. Thus the race to replace. I don't know how many litter boxes you have in your home, but the rule of thumb is one per cat plus one. Also, crazy idea, what if you got a tall plastic storage box to use as a litterbox? Something taller than Eva, bigger than Suki, and without a flap or lid. Heck, you and John could probably build stairs for the cats to use if you're worried about jumping being an issue. A big clear tub is probably about $5 at walmart. I know it'll be a lot of litter and force you to have to scoop, but it's the best idea I've got.
ReplyDeleteLast week I found Eva snuggled up sleeping in the newly-washed and dried Genie pellets, so I think it's safe to say they don't hate it! Scooping traditional litter still removes their waste, so this really isn't so different - it's just easier on us and better for the girls, since they get clean litter several times a day instead of just once or twice. (Which also means we can manage with one box, since it's cleaned so often.)
DeleteObviously all pet situations are different, so I can't speak for anyone else, but the Cat Genie works for us. We just have to work to keep Eva's pee *inside* of it, lol.
I use a clear 56 qt Rubbermaid storage tub and scoop it myself, because my $10,000 cat (long story) is not able to aim anymore. No low dip place and the walls are high enough enough your standing urinator probably won't make a mess. I also use World's Best Cat Litter (it flushes!!) because it clumps pretty hard, falls apart in water, and does not offend his sensitive nose nor cause his allergies to all perfumey things to flare up.
ReplyDeleteThe first Christmas we had Cinder and Ember (tortie litter mates) and tried to put up the artificial Christmas tree, they thought it was an awesome new playground and completely destroyed/disassembled it twice before I waved a white flag and got a real tree. Real trees were never as much fun because sap happens.
ReplyDeleteCinder had bowel issues for many years and in the last couple of years she would never poop in the litter box. Not a great situation but not as big an issue when the poop is formed. Unfortunately, she had horrific liquid diarrhea most of the time. Scrubbing liquid poop out of the white carpet at 2am got old really fast.
Fortunately, Ember didn't inherit the bowel issues that plagued her sister, but she's stopped squatting now that she's 17. I have a subscribe and save order of Amazon puppy pads that I use to completely line the area around all the litter boxes. It's not a perfect solution but the pee pads catch most of the pee that she's spraying outside the boxes.
The big rubbermaid tub. For our Jamie I cut the hole low as he was having issues getting up on things. After he went blind we invested in an Amazon subscription to puppy pads, as he sometimes just wouldn't make it. But for Big Fat Jerry, he uses poop as a weapon. The one thing we found for him was that he was taller than we thought when he squatted, so we took the lid off the rubbermaid, and that made some difference for him, at least for pee.
ReplyDeleteWorst thing one of our cats did? While I was having a nap on the couch under a blanket, he walked on top of me and peed right in my FACE. I was screaming for my husband with my mouth closed (try that...)so I wouldn't get pee in my mouth. :(
I once had a black cat named Murdoc who started randomly peeing on things and I couldn't figure out why... Then, a few months later, after my marriage had sadly dissolved in a messy teary mess and the ex had his stuff piled in the dining room, waiting on a truck, I locked eyes with Murdoc as he approached the pile. He stared me down as he turned, backed up, and let loose - peeing all over the pile of the ex's stuff.
ReplyDeleteThat's when I realized that ALL of the stuff Murdoc had been peeing on for months had belonged to the ex. Cats know about jerks, I guess. (I should have warned that I have dark humor, LOL)
Dogs too. My sister had a Newfie pup with a similar behavior pattern. My guess is the dog could smell the other woman on his stuff.
DeleteMy brother’s cat in college walked across his keyboard and managed to delete all of an essay, save the changes, and close out of Word the night before the essay was due.
ReplyDeleteMy car in high school loved to play fetch with bottle caps. If you opened a bottle of water, she’d meow at you until you threw the cap. She left bottle caps in strategic places to try to entice you to play fetch, basically anywhere she noticed you spending a lot of time/paying attention to. I was in my math class when I discovered that she had taken all of my writing utensils out of my bag and replaced them with bottle caps.
I will not start with my beagle stories for they are many. Suffice to say that she opens Tupperware correctly using the tab and unwraps candy before she eats it. You may extrapolate the rest of her shenanigans from there.
Beagles can be super intelligent when it comes to food 😂 I have a Beagle x Corgi and I'm sure he would get up to more mischief if his legs weren't so short
DeleteShe's a beagle x border collie. Our house isn't child-proofed for our toddler. She's lucky we love her neurotic little butt.
DeleteOh wow border collie. Yeah I can imagine she must have tons of energy. I think we got lucky with our boy. We got him when we was 5 so we missed out on the puppy stage etc. We also previously had a Beagle X Jack Russell and she had a fondness for socks. She also randomly ate some of the wall one night.
DeleteI have been laughing hysterically since I hit the matches and flame thrower comparison, and have continued while reading all the comments.
ReplyDeleteOkay, dog stories. Picked the peaches off the peach tree and put them in a box with top flaps. Folded the flaps in, pushed the approximately 30+ pound box under an end table on the porch that it "just" cleared. Left the house. Came back to found out that my 15 pound miniature poodle had pulled the box out from under the end table, pulled open the flaps, and had peaches scattered throughout the house.
This same poodle (Pixie) apparently liked things to be unadorned. I had a brand new straw cowboy hat with a feather band. Came home to find feathers everywhere, but the hat itself undamaged. My mother had a large, stuffed, decorative swan, with a flowered collar. One day, it no longer had a flowered collar, but again, the swan itself was undamaged.
One more Pixie story. We had to tell our extended family to identify food-bearing gifts at Christmas time so we didn't put them under the tree... I brought gifts home from work, and later found one unwrapped, and a cookie cutter on the floor. Later, when I thanked my coworker for the fun cookie cutter, she asked me how I'd liked the fudge.....
ReplyDeleteI have very long hair, and every once in a while my cat will eat a strand or two. When afterward she goes to poop, they will not separate ... they will, instead, form a line, still attached to my cat. She then proceeds to run around the house, all the while being chased by what we have dubbed "poop monsters".
ReplyDeleteNot something that was ruined, exactly, but still a funny story. When I was pregnant with my first child, our cat, who wasn't fixed yet, came into heat. One evening, I was chilling out with my feet up, watching TV and eating strawberries, when I feel something warm on my leg. I look down and there's my cat, peeing on me! She only did that the one time, but that week, she peed on my stuff several times. My husband didn't believe me, until one day I went to shower, laid out my clothes on the bed, and he witnessed her jump up and very deliberately pee on my clothes. She wasn't sick or anything, our theory is that she was reacting in some way to my hormones. It was so strange. At the time I was not very happy about it, but these days it's just a funny story
ReplyDeleteYou are all making me ashamed of my doggie woes: they've been using the bit of garage pass through into the great big back yard (Felly fenced. Partially wooded. One acre. It's a doggie paradise! ) to... Poo and see on the concrete
ReplyDeleteThey're 70 lb dogs, so... They have a lot to offer.
But it's just concrete. Blessings... Counted.
Hello! Can you picture walking into your living room to find your laptop open on the coffee table and your sweet, precious, 18 year old kitty asleep in loaf form on your keyboard and as you coo from the cuteness, you observe the blue screen of death on your laptop, then your knees buckle. I have no idea which buttons she pushed, but she erased my hard drive.
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry about the pee in your house. I’m having similar problems with mine right now and have also resorted to mattress covers and locking bedroom doors. ��
Not sure if anyone suggested this, but we have a cat that does the same thing (he’s prone to crystals in his pee and has had lots of issues - frequently the food is the cause) - but we use a giant Rubbermaid storage tote as a litter box, the high sides contain his pee. Super cheap, easy, and worth a try! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThe TV. One of our fluffy butted cats likes to chew on the corner of our flat screen tv. He has effectively chewed the power button. The sensor still works, so we can use the remote. He has also murdered countless cords, chargers, and earbuds.
ReplyDeleteSo my boy Helios is 13, but has never been good about using the litter box. He much prefers clothes if left on the floor, or rugs, or door mats. Needless to say we don’t have rugs and nothing soft is left on the floor. He also stands and sprays, even though he’s fixed, so we have high walled boxes.He is also a major floof-butt. He was using the box pretty well for awhile, but this past year decided he was done with it. So we tried putting doggie pee pads down in our bathroom. They have sticky corners so we stick one edge up on the outside wall of the tub, so it’s like an L shape pee catcher. He took to them right away. Sometimes he misses, but not often. It feels wasteful using the pads, we go through 3-4 a day, but it’s about as bad as all the paper towels we were using to clean up all his messes. The things we do for our fuzzy monster children...
ReplyDeleteI have to echo all the posters here who suggested a giant tote box to put your litter box in. It worked for my very old, sick kitty when she couldn't aim well. Puppy pads around the box were also a lifesaver!
ReplyDeleteDuring that time, she also peed on me, the computer and the tablet, leading to me scrubbing my poor laptop out at 3 am. I miss that little booger so much.
We have a cat that misses all the time, and so we just keep the cat pan in the bathtub of the spare bathroom. If we have company that needs that bathroom, I'll move it temporarily, but mostly it lives in the tub, and it's just so much easier to clean up in there!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have a Pixie Bob who eats ANY kind of food he can get to. We've learned the hard way to not leave anything out for him: he's eaten avocados, tomatoes, all of the bread items you can think of, ANYthing out on the counter will meet the same fate. I keep stuff that won't fit in the cupboards in "food cages".
Also, I had a dog that once ate the Thanksgiving pies that were cooling on the stove while we were out shopping....
I was owned by a cat at one point who hated the smell of
ReplyDeletechili powder, and would let everybody know how much he disliked
it by perking on or in any shoes he had access too. But one
day he actually jumped up on the kitchen counter and peed into
The pot of chili that was simmering on the stove!
Storage tote as several others have suggested.
ReplyDeleteBut I must now how the cat genie really works? I've read the reviews and for the cost, I can't buy it if it is going to be a hassle. Baked cat poo is not something I can deal with.
We had 3 different Litter Maid boxes. The first one lasted nearly 10 years and was awesome. But the other two were poor quality and so now we have 4 plain old plastic manual scooping litter boxes for 5 cats. Our latest mistake was to get rid of a somewhat broken high box in favor of ones that fit our sifter. The sifter works fine but the sides are too low for our litter scattering cats.
We had one cat that went outside the box in the same place and it ruined the walls. We bought the high wall boxes for her. RIP. Loved her so much but don't miss that mess. We even bought a small spot cleaner because of her. Don't leave any organic material in them. Worst smell ever. I would imagine sort of like the baked on cat poo that the cat genie is known for, at least to me.
Absolutely nothing was ruined, but:
ReplyDeleteOn my very first time meeting one branch of my extended in-laws, their (small) dog stole a stick of butter and ate the entire thing. Then came and met me and sat in my lap. Then hurled the entire stick of butter all over my sweater.
Fortunately, that sweater was the sweater I used to wear while babysitting infants - it's soft, but washer/dryer safe. The in-laws were apparently very impressed with how well I rolled with their just-met dog vomiting an entire stick of butter all over my sweater, but honestly, most of the credit goes to the sweater because I was fairly confident from prior experience that 1. I could get it off without getting dog vomit in my hair, and 2. the sweater would be just fine. :-)
I don't have a funny story, but I have a story. We had a dog years and years ago, and he was a chewer. He chewed almost through the stretcher bars on the base of a wooden dining chair. The dog is long gone, on to his doggie reward, but the chair remains with his toothmarks. He won't be forgotten because he left his mark.
ReplyDeleteMy cats, Þula and Lýra, always follow me into the bathroom. When they were smaller one of them, Þula, was rubbing agains my legs as I sat on the toilet. She then proceeded to pee in the underwear that were around my ankles! In her defence I had been away for a couple of days and she did not take well to that.
ReplyDeleteLast Christmas our 2 cats, Finn and Lexi, pulled our artificial Christmas tree down multiple times. I put unbreakable ornaments on the tree so that we wouldn't have to clean up broken glass. Lexi tried to climb it several times and enjoyed stealing ornaments. I'm not sure how we're handling the Christmas tree this year, but I may try hanging the artificial tree from fishing line or just getting a really large live tree for them to climb, which would be too heavy to pull over.
ReplyDeleteYears ago we had a cat who liked to take a candy cane off the tree. She never broke the cellophane or did anything but drag it around -- and always took the same one. Ninja (our 2-year old baby cat) likes to take an ornament off the tree - same one every night; no matter where you put it on the tree it is in the middle of the living room floor in the morning
DeleteA couple days ago my boyfriend was making dinner, and I bought some rolls on my way home. After I got home I set the rolls on the table and went upstairs. Apparently one of the cats managed to drag the bag of 12 rolls off the table and was almost to the litterbox when my boyfriend caught him. We both agree we admire his desire to eat carbs while sitting on the toilet.
ReplyDeleteAh, pets.
ReplyDeleteThe not squatting thing is a known issue with cats who left their mothers too early. I saw an episode of Cat From Hell about it. The solution there was a high-sided box with no lid. Not sure how that'll work with the cat genie litter box, though.
As for animals destroying things ... I have 5 cats and have been having inappropriate peeing issues for a while. I went to the n+1 boxes deal, so I now have 6 boxes. These little brats use TWO. I might get one puddle or one poo in the other boxes, but they go on a blitz in the two Chosen Boxes.
Oh, and I had a German Shepherd who liked to chew chair rungs while he was teething. While I was sitting in the chair. Felt like an earthquake.
~Anissa
I can empathize, I have ten cats and they all pee in one box and poo in another three. I know they recommend one for each plus an extra, but if they're not going to use it, I'm not wasting my money on supplying them, lol.
DeleteSo.. funny story. I have had a cat pee issue for about a year now. I inherited my Mom's cat, Swishy, who was raised with 2 other cats, but who had been alone for five years. Enter Pooshi a co-workers cat who needed to be rehomed. I adopt Pooshi. The two do not get along.. commence PEEING! Outside the box, around the food bowls, in the dog's bed, in my bed. *Sigh* Vet visits to rule out UTIs, seperating their food, controling their food more, 2 Feliaways later.. we're still getting the occasional pee on the beds. So.. it happened again and that means the girls are locked out of the bedroom at night. because pee.
ReplyDeleteWell Pooshi loves to snuggle with me at night. So she's been pawing at the door incessantly through the night. According to my boyfriend, for the past two nights that she's been locked out, I have gotten up at some point to open the door. I scoop my cat up and deposit her on the bed, and when questioned, I have said "But she's my kitty and I love her.."
I have no memory of this at all. Huzzah sleepwalking!
My cat likes to use his litter box while balancing on the edge, which wasn't a problem as a kitten and I thought he'd grow out of it. Now he's something like 15lbs and would tip the whole litter box all over the floor when he sat on the edge!
ReplyDeleteHe still does it, but I bought him a bigger litter box that he *crosses fingers* has yet to tip over. A little more work for me, but it's worth it.
I'm amazed at people who have multiple cats and manage to get them to share a litterbox. My cats have never (we're on our 3rd set) been able to share a box. In fact, each of our cats has 2 boxes because one for each just doesn't cut it. Our 3-legged wonder, Sam has a long storage box for one of her boxes because Divas need alot of space to potty.
ReplyDeleteWe had a cat, Biwie, so clever she could open the fridge door and my dad first screwed holed plates on each side then put a U shaped thing in it but she found out how to make it drop, so we ended having a padlocked fridge to keep one tiny cat out of it ! She also love chocolate cake so much it was unsafe to leave one to cool without watching. We often were on cake cooling watch, which is as ridiculous as watching paint dry...
ReplyDeleteI've been using a top entry box for a few months. The top has many holes so litter drops back in. My big boy Mayhem (15 1/2 lbs) hops in, and does his business with his head out the top. The lid has small holes which catch a lot of the litter and let it go back inside. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076YR7VT2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
ReplyDeleteHis worst destruction was when he discovered the TEST button on the printer, so he'd punch it and watch papers come out. The destruction happened when he sat on the paper exit, and kept on punching. It caused the mother of all paper jams, and killed the laser printer.
Oh gosh we have those too. Definitely better for the peeing out the seams of covered litter boxes (RIDICULOUS) but we had a good laugh when we saw how our one cat poops in it... she gets inside the box to move litter around, then hops ONTO the lid to stick her butt over the hole and poop. Just crouches on the lid. Then, of course, climbs back inside to move litter again. Strange creatures, these house panthers.
DeleteOh, that is magnificently ridiculous!
DeleteOur cat Sophie was absolutely beautiful. Pure white, long silky hair, delicate pink nose and toes, with one eye the color of a peridot and other one sapphire blue. We loved her dearly, despite that though she wasn't quite as dumb as a box of rocks, good lord she was close. For example, we had to design an enclosure for the litter box with an entrance to one side and a ramp so that she had to descend into the actual box. Otherwise she'd get just her head and front legs in the box, assume that was all she needed, and do her business on the mat.
ReplyDeleteI love the ideas about the larger containers for litter box. What may help in the meantime (to protect your floors) is to lay out pee pads. I've dealt with cat pee issues for a long time. We lost our cat Kai earlier this year to acromegaly. As his disease progressed he really couldn't use a litter box, so we coated a bathroom floor in disposable pee pads which he always made sure to use (Costco has the least expensive ones). His brother, Coda, had issues with peeing in inappropriate places which has improved with homeopathic treatment. I still keep pee pads next to the litter box. He'll always poop in the box but will pee either in the box or on the pee pad. I can live with that arrangement. BTW, unscented Oxiclean will remove cat pee from clothes/towels, etc in the wash. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteOur year old house horses (Pyrenees Anatolian mix pups) get the zoomies on a daily basis. Often 2 or three times a day. They really are small ponies, or deer... The smaller of the two (Mocha) is much more nimble than her sister and uses this advantage to jump onto the couch during said zoomies. We've had covers on the couch for a while and they have to cover the whole thing, because she often barely hits the top of the back in her vaulting. She has however, popped a seam in the tufted velvet couch. So now I get to figure out how to stitch that back together nicely. The larger (Chai)loves to pull carpet up and collect firewood for chew toys. They were supposed to be livestock guardians, but my husband fell in love too deeply to make them work. :)
ReplyDeleteI finally got a big storage bin with a top lid at Home Depot. Then I cut an access hole in the side, higher than a commercial litter box. That helped contain the business inside. I'd ask at the vet about her spraying. Usually males have the spraying issue.
ReplyDeleteA friend had a cat that's pee would miss the box, so she used rubbermaid bins as litterboxes. That doesn't help though if you're using a self cleaning litter box :\
ReplyDeleteI have a friend whose dog (Vlad) likes to rescue stray animals. The first animal he brought home was a tiny fluff ball of a cat. This was followed by a wild bunny, an injured bird (all better & released back into the wild), and a piglet that belonged to the farm on the other side of the woods behind her house (piglet was returned to mama pig). Vlad also likes to act as a nanny dog, making sure young children (and animals) take naps at regular intervals, corralling the lambs at my friend's in-laws' farm, and babysitting the puppies at the local kennel. If Vlad wants quiet, he will bark and paw at people's legs to make them lie down for a nap.
ReplyDeleteMy cat Fiona elevator pees. So she'd start squatting and then slowly stand up. She also had a habit of pointing her butt towards the litter box opening. Pee would dribble down the sides of the box and then seep under. Very, very frustrating. I use a storage tote now, a 33 gallon one. She just couldn't get the hang of anything else.
ReplyDeleteThe family dog, a Sheltie named Zack, chewed the head and front legs off an ornament yard sheep shortly after joining us. Which I found hilariously ironic for a sheepdog. Its probably a good thing he was a pet living in the city and not working on a farm. LOL
ReplyDeleteMy husband was a chimney sweep. At a job one day, a cat jumped into his open van and sprayed his respirator mask. When my husband went to use it, needless to say, he 'bout choked to death. So he brings it to me to clean, and I tried every cleaning, disinfecting, odor-killing agent in every combination I could think of... the winner was dry coffee grounds. I buried the mask in coffee grounds for a few days, and the odor vanished!
ReplyDeleteThis also worked when we moved into a house with a screened-in porch that was where the cats lived. Covered the floor with grounds, and unless it was real humid, the smell was gone.
We save coffee pods from hotel stays to keep under the car seat, or hide in the bathroom. It worked great when the freezer died full of fish and venison!
I had a male cat who did that. I bought a large, clear plastic storage box and cut an entry hole in the front. He couldn't aim high enough to clear the top. All pee went down the sides. Problem solved.
ReplyDeletemy current cat has "poo-phoria", euphoria after doing #2 -- he poops, then races around the house, forgetting to cover up the stinky poop, so thank you very much kitty
DeleteOh, yea, cats...
ReplyDeleteMy fave "cute" cat story: bought a brand-new, lovely, high-end feather bed, filled with lovely down and, well, feathers, right? That same Xmas, had a brand-new to us Himalayan Kitten, Mr. Bud, which I had lovingly selected as my hubby's Xmas gift. We unrolled the featherbed in the living room, to check it out. Mr. Bud, about 10 weeks old at the time, comes galloping along the floor, leaps onto the featherbed and jumps all over it. SOOO cute! He looked like a darling "Soft Surroundings" ad, in the flesh. Right up to the point he squatted and peed all over it.
Mr. Bud has, now, nearly 35 years later, passed on to that giant Kitty Bed in the sky, but the featherbed, we still have. It's now a large, foofy catbed for my Maine Coons.
I had 4 feral cats, they all decided to mark territory all over the house, even though we got them all fixed, it was too late. They ruined every piece of furniture in our house! I don't care. The last one died 2 weeks ago, she never peed to much but in the end she was in kidney failure and would dribble all over, I put down pee pads and they worked pretty well. I really miss her, she was so sweet and loving ( to me anyway).
ReplyDeletenot deliberately destructive, but my floofy chonk of a cat doesn't seem to know where her backside is anymore. she's 17 years old....she's *trying* to pee in the box, but missing.
ReplyDeleteSo we put the litter box into a huge drip-pan liner like you'd use for oil changes, and put a puppy pad under the box. that way, when she pees, it's going onto the puppy pad and not the floor.
good luck with your sprayer, tho.....i wouldn't even know where to start
One of our cats habitually jumped on the kitchen counter, looking for things he could eat. One morning I got out of bed, walked into the kitchen and was struck by an awful smell. On the kitchen counter was our toaster and on top was a loaf of bread - scorched and in a melted plastic bag. Melted plastic aaaaaall over the toaster. We are 100% sure that while roaming the counter, all 18 lbs of Zeb stepped on the toaster lever, effectively turning it on.
ReplyDeleteBoth bread and toaster had to be thrown out.
I swear he looked a mixture of proud and guilty all day.
Put the litter box... in another, bigger box with higher walls, with the low spots on both walls staggered, so that even if she makes it out of the regular litter box opening, the bigger box will catch the spill. Line the bigger box with puppy training pads or something similar, so they don't wind up walking through pee getting in and out.
ReplyDeleteFunniest/weirdest thing my cat has ruined: I have an end table with a glass top, and a hole in the middle. I had a lava lamp sitting on it at one time, and a fabric poster thing hanging on the wall over it. My cat reached up to bat at the wall hanging, I yelled at him to get down, and as he did he knocked over the lava lamp, which then shattered the glass top of the end table. That was fun to clean up. (The lava lamp was fine though!) I knew a guy at the time who replaced the glass with a piece of plexiglass, so s'all good.
ReplyDeleteI have a high peer cat and Modkat cat litter boxes have been a sanity saver! The entire line of boxes are a single high walled box. No seam for urine to leak through
ReplyDeleteApologies if someone has suggested this - you can get "top loading" litter boxes, with the entryway in the top. I am sure I have seen people make their own out of a large plastic storage box. That would mean high walls, no seam halfway to leak and no low entry to aim out of. In cat-destruction news, my ginger beast recently threw up all over my brand new expensive Faber Castell pencil case I'd just days before treated myself to *sigh*.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMy cat, Denny, has a curled tail like a husky dog. I think she has a slightly tilted pelvis. Poop goes in the back and pee in the front. She often pees outside the box. After trying numerous boxes, I got one with a dome and a swinging door entrance. That works half of the time. The other half she goes in, but her back holds the door open, and she pees outside the box. I have to use wee wee pads, because there's no way to get a cat to step in the box just one inch more.
Well I have an elderly female cat (four total, 3 males and her) who will not use a box no matter WHAT. She likes rugs. Bare floors. Outside on the rubber mats next to the driveway. But not a box. I have no idea what I have to do to get her to stop peeing on the floors. Mostly, she'll use the basement, where I have some old rugs just for this purpose, which can be picked up and washed. But during the latest home-improvement project, which was refinishing my first floor hardwood, she decided to use THAT. I could have killed her. It was right before the workmen came back to apply stain and sealer--and I thought she had ruined it. I caught it in time, cleaned it up, they resanded and we got it dried and finished. But I'm absolutely unable to allow her onto these floors again. If she ruins my brand new hardwood finish I'll literally kill her. (no, but well, you know.) I can't allow her into the living room, dining room or back room. Only the kitchen where I have rubber-backed rugs in place. I don't know what to do with her. Any suggestions--anyone?
ReplyDeleteSo many stories I have. Worst was my sister's cat who never used her litter box for anything but sleeping. She would only pee down the air conditioning/heating vents and poop in the super long 1970's brown shag carpet of the den. Argh!
ReplyDeleteI'm just now seeing this.
ReplyDeleteOur black cat, Licorice, stands for both...usually just braced on the edge of the box, but sometimes against the wall. It's weird, but this far he's managed to stay within the lines.
But I just read an article by a professional animal trainer with a famous cat (Didja in Catmantoo.com) who does not advise toilet training cats. Hm.
I'm late to the game here, but my cat Dora pees straight backwards! It's really weird and disgusting if you can't contain it. We got a Litter Robot, which is not only a great automatic litterbox, but also is enclosed to contain acrobatic kitties.
ReplyDeleteI recommend doggie pee pads. Easy to deal with and just toss. My rescue cat was de-clawed and it causes her problems in the litter box. She tries to keep it in the box, but ends up soaking the carpet. This solution works for me.
ReplyDelete