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Cat keeps peeing on steps of his litterbox
Varinn
Vancouver, BCRegistered User regular
Vancouver, BCRegistered User regular
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
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
+1
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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.
But yeah I'd wager he's just raising his ass up and shooting it outside the box down the stairs.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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
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.