Male cats strange behaviour

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
Hello all,

I managed to reduce the amount of tracked litter by essentially carpeting half the bathroom with litter mats. However, my male cat now pees on the litter mat instead of the box , he has never done this before. Any ideas on how to stop this? Its awful!

2
There are many reasons why a cat might start doing his toilet outside the usual place: they feel their territory threatened, they have an urinary infection, they develop dementia, they are assholes, etc.

I had to deal with all of the above... The urinary problem was fixed the easiest - took cat to vet, vet gave diagnosis, cat took pills, cat got better. The psycological problems (one cat had his territory threatened by... I kid you not... a monkey (we lived right next to the zoo, and the escaped animals tended to come to our home...)) were a bit more complicated to solve. The dementia was impossible to solve - but my cat died at the ripe old age of 19, so we forgave her, but all we could do was to cover the floor in mats

I'd advise you to first remove the mats so that the cat understands that there is only one proper place to do his business. A few sand grains here and there shouldn't be that much of a problem. And pay attention to his water consume and if he is peeing regularly (basically looking for signs you might need to take him to the vet for an infection).

I wish you good luck...

3
Thank you Helm I will keep an eye on his water consumption and remove the mats.

You've got me thinking though. The farmer recently moved his 6 sheep onto the open land next to our apartment. Maybe my cat is scared of them, hes not encountered sheep before so maybe that is the problem.

4
I echo what Helm says, remove the mat completely and replace it with something non-absorbent, but a different sort of material from the mats he now thinks of as part of the toilet area. It might also be a good idea, space-depending, to move the litter box to a different room, to break the habit.

I'm assuming yours is an indoor cat, but even with outdoor ones this behaviour can develop if there are other cats around - is there an outdoor cat that he can see, or smell, at times? If so then you might be able to stop him going to wherever he can see it, if you see what I mean.

Always difficult, and usually will be fixable with a combination of these tricks, but it will still take some time, so you need to be patient, and try to give him lots of attention to make him feel secure in his home.

5
Thanks Ace1. He comes and goes as he pleases, since we moved here he has spent a lot of time outside but refuses to go to the toilet outside which is annoying.

I'll try all tips given. Its a smelly problem to have to deal with

6
Ah, well when we've had to ween cats off using the litter tray we've gradually moved it more towards the outside, first to a cellar-level hall (with cat flap to garage), then to the garage itself (with cat-flap to outside), then eventually they stop using it at all. Of course, your layout may not be so conducive to this.

But by far the best solution we found was fitting a magnetically-operated cat flap which stops other cats coming in the house. That is the most common reason for this sort of behaviour, so look to your cat-security - if yours can come and go at will then so can the neighbouring cats...

7
Just take the matts away! We bought a much larger tray (from a garden shop- for potting up plants- hard plastic) to put the litter tray in to 'catch' the cat litter spills- any soft absorbent matt or towel will be used to pee in such circumstances. No matt, no problem!

We have stopped using cat litter now, and have replaced with wood pellets for wood burning stove- she loves it as it is totally natural, and it smells of fresh wood- great.

8
@ Odile

Are you allowed to put the wood pellets in the compost?

9
Can't she just put them in the wood-burner anyway, once any solids are removed?

10
Only if she's actually got one ( which I suspect she has)

We have been using the wood pellets in the litter tray for our cat for years ( but he barely uses it) and the pellets are fine to put in the compost. We don't have a woodburner.

11
With no offense, am sure whole neighbourhood will be delighted if anyone burns wood pellets on which cat (or anyone else) has peed in their burner.

Like the normal smoke from those wouldnt be bad pollution enough lets add some nice smell to it.

12
Not sure about 'council compost bins' - I have 8- and always put a thin layer and then cover with other garden material- the amonia would not be good in large quantities. By the time I change her tray, the wet pellets have disintegrated into powder- so no good for the wood burner or the open fire place. All our large compost bins are nowhere near any house or neighbour btw.

She always wees in the middle, so with gloves I remove the wet stuff in the middle, and re-spread the dry pebbles from the outside and cover with fresh ones. Works great. She is another of those lovely but truly annoying cats who go outside all day but wouldn't dream of doing her business out there- she comes home to do so in comfort (grrrrr- we adopted her as a rescue as an adult, and she is now about 18, so bless her, we will let her get on with it)

13
I have a rescue cat who likes to live in the apartment all day and always does his business outside, happy days!