Cat keeps peeing on steps of his litterbox

Varinn

Simple question...

Our cat is about 3 years old, rough estimate by the vet. We picked him up from a rescue last year where they said he was found on the street (untagged and unregistered) so he may not have been a house cat from birth. He was neutered by the shelter's vet and is otherwise totally fine.

He's hefty, true. He likes food and has lost 1lb since come home to us, we feed him according to the vet recommendations and he's been found to be healthy for his size. We were advised not to worry TOO much about the weight, and to let him slowly drop a few pounds. He drinks plenty of water has never made a mess outside the realm of his box. Lately though he's occasionally been peeing on the steps of it versus climbing all the way in, it only happens once every couple weeks or so but it's tedious to clean when it pools at the bottom and it smells somethin' fierce. He still drops the kids off in the sandbox every time. Anyone have any suggestions?? I'm not sure how to stop him from doing this.




Obligatory picture of the guy in question

MaggieTheCat

This usually happens with our cats when we don't keep the boxes clean enough. He might also not like the kind of litter you're using, although that would be more likely if he was consistently going outside the box and both peeing and pooping outside of it.

dispatch.o

May have issues with the litter type. Try a non clay litter. We get stuff made from corn and it helped with one of our cats.

Iruka

Looking at the design of the box, and considering the way cats sometimes try to pee on the walls of their box a bit, is it possible that hes actually getting all the way in and then peeing over the lip in there?

We opted for a giant, uncovered box and seem to be doing okay. If hes big enough, it might just be a little small for your dude.

Bowen

Those litter boxes are actually pretty huge inside. Definitely big enough for that cat.

But yeah I'd wager he's just raising his ass up and shooting it outside the box down the stairs.

Varinn

That's entirely likely, he's using the box as I type right now and doesn't seem to have any problem. We went with the covered box cause he had a tendency to find the lowest wall on both his old ones and fling rocks a great distance from the thing which made a halo of crunchy sandbits in the carpet around his place of business. The litterbox is in a large walk in closet under the stairs, we leave the door part way open for him to go in and do his thing and it's never been an issue as we can tell. He has no obvious problems with the confined space.

In the realm of cleaning habits, we have rotated through multiple litters in the last year, we don't like the current one for another reason (barely clumps making the pee smell hard to remove). We clean every 2 days or so (if we remember, sometimes 3), and flush it out every 1-2 weeks.

dispatch.o

Clean every 2-3 days? You should be scooping twice a day. Once at a minimum.

If you're really scooping once every 2-3 days, I'd be supremely thankful its just peeing on the steps of the box sometimes.

bwanie

yeah.

some cats don't mind , but most will start trying to get your attention after a day or two.

And guess what the preferred method for most cats is....

Varinn

Well damn.

Who knew! I've had cats my whole life but this is the first ever that is an exclusively indoor cat, the rest always went outside so there was no litterbox to worry about. I'll see about cleaning it more frequently.

With that being said, he has done it with a freshly cleaned box once before. We had just emptied it, washed it, and refilled with fresh litter. An hour or two later it smelled and when we checked there was pee on the steps. Would that go back most likely to him being too lazy to go all the way in or possible that he really just doesn't like the litter we're using? I might try to source some of that corn based stuff and see how that goes.

Bowen

yeah try the corn stuff, it's good shit

Probably just the way he takes a piss more than likely.

tbh the needing to change it every day depends entirely on the cat, some will just keep piling it on forever, some get pissed if there's a grain of pee in the box.

Normally you'd want to scoop it at least once a day. Then cycle the litter out every week or two. With just a single cat you can probably go to two without it getting terrible, so long as it clumps.

dispatch.o

As I've suggested before. Try cutting a hole in the side of a rubbermaid storage tote if you have one around. Try that as a temporary litter box.

Males that weren't fixed young enough still sort of stand up at the end of their peeing as a leftover habit from marking. It may help.

mts

Varinn wrote: »

Well damn.

Who knew! I've had cats my whole life but this is the first ever that is an exclusively indoor cat, the rest always went outside so there was no litterbox to worry about. I'll see about cleaning it more frequently.

With that being said, he has done it with a freshly cleaned box once before. We had just emptied it, washed it, and refilled with fresh litter. An hour or two later it smelled and when we checked there was pee on the steps. Would that go back most likely to him being too lazy to go all the way in or possible that he really just doesn't like the litter we're using? I might try to source some of that corn based stuff and see how that goes.

if your buddha dome is anything like mine it often collects a lot of litter on the steps, might be he is not super pickey so long as he sees some litter

also keep in mind your cat is your cat. once every other days is not egregiously neglectful if your cat doesn't mind. obviously since he might be having peeing protests, stepping up the schedule is a good idea

Iruka

For litter, I currently mix two litters together to maximize their different qualities, it might be a little more work than needed, but it really gets me the blend I prefer. We use unscented litter and opt to keep the box very clean.

Even if he likes/uses the covered box, you might have to engineer around his issue a bit, so I would keep an open mind to changing the box out if cleaning it more does not help.