If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

When you and your cat come to an agreeable arrangement about the litter box, there’s usually something wrong when kitty goes somewhere else. She may be stressed or ill. When my 19-year old feline companion didn’t deposit anything in her box in over a week, we visited the vet and she received a diagnosis that ended in her ultimate demise.

It’s important for a cat’s owner to monitor what’s deposited in the litter box, and how often. You may have no reason to think your cat has worms, but if they’ve consumed raw meat, a.k.a. a slow bird or neighborhood rodent, it’s a possibility. If you feed and manually clean the litter box on a regular basis, monitoring output will come easily. It’s a litter box second nature worth developing.

If you cat roams both indoors and outdoors, he may designate a particular location within his roaming territory as his outhouse. Cats enjoy scratching in dirt, and depositing their leavings also enables them to mark their territory. Feral cats and dominant alpha males don’t always cover their feces, but people socialized cats are usually willing and able to cut down on the odor. If you own multiple cats, and discover someone isn’t covering, it’s an indication of a disruption in the usual feline social order in your home.

The most important quality of a litter, by the cat’s way of thinking, is the feel. For this reason, cat owners will have a better box experience if they select a non-scented litter of the same consistency each time. Switching between different types of litter shapes and feels, with different smells can be upsetting to your cat.

Having worked at a veterinary clinic, I learned most cat owners use more litter in the box than is necessary. The vet I worked for insisted that cats require only 1 inch to 1 and 1/2 inches of litter in the box. Having a lower level of litter may keep Kitty from kicking it out onto the surrounding floor.

Kitty litter can be made of chalk, clay, wood shavings, compressed wood chips, silicone beads, and even shredded newspapers. Whether you prefer clumping or traditional clay litter, it’s important to clean the box of leavings daily, and to dump the box, wash it with an ammonia based detergent, and add new litter evey week or so.

The scent of lavender detergent may smell good to you, but the odor is stronger to Kitty because she’s closer to it, and because her nose is three times more sensitive than a humans. The smell of ammonia is similar to that of cat urine. If you ever need to encourage your cat to use a new box in a different location, spill a half a cap full of ammonia in the box.

If you’re moving with Kitty from one location to another, it will prove worth the effort to bring part of the litter from the last box. Kitty will easily interpret what you want for her to do when you designate a new quiet location. It’s not a good idea to have the litter box and the feeding location to close together. Cats are very clean by nature, and if their food becomes soiled they won’t eat.

Adult male cats who aren’t able to drink enough water can develop cystitis, and may come to associate pain with the litter box. Kitty may think the litter box is causing him pain. If a male seems to be avoiding his box, or misses where he should be aiming, it’s a good idea to schedule an appointment with your vet. Urinary tract infections can be very painful.

By the age of six weeks or so, most kittens have begun to imitate what their mother does in the litter box. When kittens begin eating solid food, the litter box becomes a major importance soon afterwards. As a cat owner for over 30 years, I have to admit that most of the litter box problems I’ve experienced over the years happened because I didn’t clean the box often enough. I suspect there’s a lot of that going around, despite the best of intentions. As we begin to contemplate New Year’s resolutions, maybe you’ll join with me in resolving to make 2008 a consistently cleaner kitty box year for your great feline!