Bad Litter box Habits

What could be causing it?

The most common cause of bad litter box habits is that the kitten has been separated from its mother at a too early age, that is before the age of 12-14 weeks. Most problems caused by early separation don’t show till the cat is adult, and sometimes at a quite late age. This is one of the reasons it is so difficult to get the message through, that cats shouldn’t be taken from their mother before this age: everyone knows at least one cat who has been separated early with no problems... The sad thing is that when the problem has this background it is often very difficult to deal with.	Bad litter box habits may also be caused by physical illness, partly diseases in the urinary system, partly diseases in general, if pain and/or symptoms frustrate the cat. Bladder infection causes a frequent need to urinate and may do that the cat pees small portions around the house. If the cat also feels pain when urinating, it can get the idea, that the pain is caused by the litter box and will start looking for places to urinate that don’t hurt as much.
Fear and/or frustration about environmental changes can be another cause. Generally, cats prefer a stable environment as that makes their territory easier to control. This is general for small(er) animals. It is easier for a tiger of 300kg to ignore small changes. As cats are just as different as people, this trait is stronger in some cats than in others. Some "conservative" cats can react with frustration over changes, we humans don’t see as a problem, i.e. new neighbors with a different sound level than the old ones, moving the furniture in the home, etc.	Jealousy is a frequent cause for bad litter box habits. Jealousy in cats is also caused by the fear of losing a position and /or someone important to you. The jealousy one sees in cats is most often comparable to the sibling jealousy seen in a flock of children, and the treatment would be very similar.
Sexual maturation is another common cause for bad litter box habits. It will probably surprise many, but this can also be true for females, who often spray or pee around the house, especially when they are in heat.

What can be done about it?

The first thing to do if your cat starts urinating outside the litter box, is to schedule a visit to the vet to determine whether the cause could be physical. If the cat is elderly, the vet should check, how the kidney function is among other things. If the vet can rule out physical illness, the next thing to look for is whether there is something around the litter box that could disturb the cat somehow. If you have recently changed to a new brand of cat litter, you could try to change back to the old one to see if it is because the cat doesn’t like the new litter. One could also try to see if the cat would prefer to have a hooded litter box, if the litter box is placed too close to where the food is, if you have cleaned the litter box with a citrus smelling detergent (cats don’t like the smell of citrus) etc. If the cat has been separated from its mother at a very early age, the problem is chronic in principle, and one might have to use some of the "tricks", I mention in the chapter "Symptomatic Treatment". If the problem is caused by an environmental change, the strategy depends on what the problem is of course. If the cat is reacting to new neighbors moving in next-door, it can be somewhat of a challenge to convince the landlord to reinstall the old neighbors, so in this case one must spend a little extra time with the cat till it has gotten used to the new situation, and read the chapter "Symptomatic Treatment". If the problem is a smaller change as redecorating the home, one can try to make the changes in several steps, so the redecoration can be done in a pace that the cat doesn’t feel frustrated by. Problems with jealousy appear, just like when little Johnny gets a new little brother/sister, when the cat

gets a competitor to the owner’s attention. It can be a new cat or another animal, a child or anything that suddenly takes a lot of the owner’s time and attention. Many cats can become rather jealous of computers or telephones, which also can be serious competitors in some cases ... One mustn’t think that the cat is unreasonable because it is jealous, but remember that part of the cat’s tameness lies in the fact that it from kittenhood has been accustomed to seeing its human as a kind of surrogate mother. These reactions are therefore closely related to the separation anxiety that can be seen in small kittens that are separated from their mother. If one wants to expand one’s "flock" either with a new cat, another animal or a child, one must try to show the cat that it is still loved and still has a central position in the family. The biggest challenge is to introduce another cat. The cat will not feel quite as challenged by a dog for example; this goes back to dogs and cats not competing for the same food sources in the wild. If the newcomer is a baby, one could make it a habit to always chat to the cat, while taking care of the baby, in that way signaling that it is not forgotten just because the baby is also there, reach an arm down every time one is available and pet the cat, etc. So, if the cat develops bad litter box habits out of jealousy, the first thing to do is to give it more intensive attention. If the bad litter box habits are caused by the cat becoming sexually mature, the "therapy" is usually quite simple: when the cat has been neutered the problem stops.

What you must never do

These "pieces of good advice" one regrettably still hears, will definitely aggravate the problem, no matter what the cause is:

- scold the cat
- dip its nose in the "accident"
- throw it outside every time it has eliminated outside the litter box

Symptomatic Treatment

Don’t give up all hope, even if one can’t find the cause, or it isn’t possible to do anything about it. There are several small tricks one can try. First of all: any pedagogical initiative towards cats is enforced by positive feedback, meaning that the cat is praised every tine it does the right thing. If the cat never uses the litter box, one could praise it every time it shows interest for the litter box instead or one can "snatch" the cat, when one sees it preparing to use a wrong place and carry it to the litter box, while one praises it more and more intensively the closer one gets to the litter box. If the maneuver is successful, and the cat uses the litter box, one can end it all with a treat. Rather a temporarily fat cat than a cat with bad litter box habits! Generally cats hate the smell of citrus. So it can sometimes help to drip the "accidents" with lemon juice. One can also try to put silver foil on the "criminal" places, cats don’t like to walk on foil and usually the don’t like to pee on it either. Cats don’t like to "do their business" close to where they eat and/or drink. So it often has a good effect to start feeding on the "criminal" places. If the problem on the contrary is that the litter box is too close to the food, so the cat won’t use it for that

reason, it will of course help to find a more appropriate place for it. If the cat uses certain place it can help to place a litter box there. If the problem is nervousness in the cat, and it for some reason is difficult to do anything about the cause, one can achieve a somewhat calming effect with natural remedies like Serene-Um. The remedy contains one of the proteins (Tryptophan), that is found naturally in the cat’s food. At some point it was discovered by chance that food with a large amount of Tryptophan had a calming effect on cats. Often treatment is only needed for a shorter period. If the problem is "disagreements" about the hierarchy in the flock, things will take care of themselves, when the cats’ mutual relationships have settled down again. One can often try to alleviate tension in the flock by spraying the house evenly in "cat nose height" with the remedy Feliway. This remedy is actually developed to prevent fertile males from spraying, but it also has a distinctly calming effect on both sexes, neutered as well as fertile cats.

And remember...

- that one mustn’t clean the places the cat has had "accidents" with detergents containing household ammonia or chlorine. These substances smell exactly like urine to a cat and will therefore encourage it to continue the bad habit.