Cat Litter Boxes

My cat, Niki (female, 17, tuxedo cat) has been peeing in the room where the cat boxes are for at least 10 years if not more and in different houses. She refuses to pee in the cat box. She also poops on the floor but that’s really a minor issue.

In our current abode, which we’ve been in for going on three years, she’s peed next to the couch leaving a big nasty crusty pool, behind the TV, on rugs in the bathroom, and in the laundry room where the cat boxes are. We snagged a mini-black light from the pet store. I found several interesting spots around the house including where the male cat is spraying my books.

Since she refused to use the cat box and would pee on newspaper or throw rugs, we’d put newspaper down and make sure any throw rug she found peeable was either off the floor or the door closed. It’s such a routine, we have a weekend plus Thurs and Fri editions of the Denver Post just to keep in stock of newspaper.

I actually figured it was because she was picky about the litter box. We had up to 6 cats at one time with three litter boxes with four male and two female cats. Now we’re down to Niki and the black cat (Ariel). So we figured pheromones or something, that she just didn’t want to pee in a box where another cat had peed.

So a few weeks ago, Rita went to stay with her daughter who is pregnant (she’s sticking around for a couple of months to help) and weirdly took her cat along on the trip. This leaves Niki alone with me.

Ok, I super clean the laundry room. Put fresh pine pellet litter in the box. I even put a recent poop in it to prime the pump so to speak. Nothing changed. She just peed on the floor. I cleaned up again and put rugs down so she could pee on something besides the floor. It’s easier to manage. I don’t have to hunt around to find where she peed and I just need to throw it in the wash to clean it. I did leave the box in place too, just in case.

Last night I had one of those brain spark things.

See, Rita is a healthy organic, green, outside hippy type person. So the cats get organic food, alternate medicines, taken to the alternative medicine vet, and even the cat litter is that pellet pine stuff. Size of a Good & Plenty or Mike & Ike. And she and I married 11 years ago.

Niki doesn’t like a lot of different stuff. She and I are a lot alike. The difference is, I keep quiet about my dislikes and eat the natural foods Rita puts out. Occasionally when not under the watchful eyes of my wife, I’ll have some bacon or eat at Wendy’s. Niki is a cat, an animal. If she doesn’t want to eat something, she just doesn’t. You can’t make her do stuff; well you can refuse to give her what she wants and she’ll eventually eat it because she doesn’t have the option to go to Wendy’s.

So my thought? You probably guessed it.

See, back when I retrieved Niki from the shelter, she was an only cat. She had her own box and I used one of the scoopable clumping litter. Tonight I went to Wal*Mart and got a small box of Fresh Step. I cleaned out the litter box of the pellets. Picked up the soiled rugs. Put a fresh rug down, just in case, then filled the box with Fresh Step. I went to wash my hands and on my way back, decided to just look in the laundry room.

Is that, is it, footprints in the litter!?! Walk over and she’d peed in the fricking box! In the 10 minutes I spent in the bathroom, she’d peed in the box!!! She also pooped on the floor, but hey, I’d rather pick up a little poop than deal with pee which gets into everything.

I imagine she was much happier, “took you long enough to learn.” 🙂

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