MetaCat owners: do your cats have a litterbox plan?
May 29, 2022 5:02 AM Subscribe
As a multi-cat multi-litterbox owner for decades, I've noticed that our cats tend to organize litterbox use in specific patterns, and those patterns change as cats come into and leave our lives. Is this common among cat owners?
We generally are a two- or three-cat household, and use the conventional wisdom of "number of cats plus one" for litterboxes. In some eras they have been in different rooms; currently they are all in the same corner of the basement.
Our household has seen several litterbox eras; these include:
1. The Drusilla / Moxie / Picasso era: four litterboxes are mixed use, but there is a "pee at the front, poop at the back" policy: all three universally urinate at the front of the litterboxes, and defecate at the back of the boxes.
1a. The Moxie / Digby era: a transitional phase between 1 and 2; still "pee at front, poop at back".
2. The Digby / Weird Sisters era (current): four litterboxes: two are strictly pee, one is mixed use, the last is strictly poop.
At some point after the Weird Sisters arrived in the house, Digby changed his litter habits to match (?) the Weird Sisters - I know this is true and he's not just in the mixed-use box, because I was working in the basement recently and saw him pee in a "pee box," scratch and cover, then walk over to the dedicated poop box to attend to business there.
So on a Sunday morning of idle curiosity: do your cats allocate litterbox use in specific ways? Is there a trend? Is there any evidence of cats somehow... planning their litterbox use?
We generally are a two- or three-cat household, and use the conventional wisdom of "number of cats plus one" for litterboxes. In some eras they have been in different rooms; currently they are all in the same corner of the basement.
Our household has seen several litterbox eras; these include:
1. The Drusilla / Moxie / Picasso era: four litterboxes are mixed use, but there is a "pee at the front, poop at the back" policy: all three universally urinate at the front of the litterboxes, and defecate at the back of the boxes.
1a. The Moxie / Digby era: a transitional phase between 1 and 2; still "pee at front, poop at back".
2. The Digby / Weird Sisters era (current): four litterboxes: two are strictly pee, one is mixed use, the last is strictly poop.
At some point after the Weird Sisters arrived in the house, Digby changed his litter habits to match (?) the Weird Sisters - I know this is true and he's not just in the mixed-use box, because I was working in the basement recently and saw him pee in a "pee box," scratch and cover, then walk over to the dedicated poop box to attend to business there.
So on a Sunday morning of idle curiosity: do your cats allocate litterbox use in specific ways? Is there a trend? Is there any evidence of cats somehow... planning their litterbox use?
Response by poster: Good question -- no, it's the Wild West, as far as I can tell.
posted by Shepherd at 5:16 AM on May 29, 2022
posted by Shepherd at 5:16 AM on May 29, 2022
Our cats (three cats, two boxes, cleaned daily) have a Pee Box and a Poop Box. There's a little mixing, but definite preferences. The boxes are identical and next to each other.
posted by misskaz at 5:26 AM on May 29, 2022
posted by misskaz at 5:26 AM on May 29, 2022
We have 4 cats, and there are definite preferences for boxes. The largest is for some reason the least used, but there's no pee box vs poo box (or I can't tell among the individuals).
posted by rawralphadawg at 5:46 AM on May 29, 2022
posted by rawralphadawg at 5:46 AM on May 29, 2022
Two cats have two and both are mixed use boxes, although they rarely poop in the larger box… like rawralphadawg the larger box is less popular but I think that’s because it is located in a less central spot in the house. It is definitely the less preferred poop box.
posted by dazedandconfused at 6:27 AM on May 29, 2022
posted by dazedandconfused at 6:27 AM on May 29, 2022
So much has to do with the individual cats' personalities. I can remember a time when I had two cats, and they both used one box for liquids and the other for solids. With other cats, each one would stick to his own box. Melanie the blind cat HAD to be the first to christen each freshly-changed box. Other times one cat WANTED to just use whatever box whenever, but his brother would chase him out if he chose unwisely. In one apartment the only place he box would fit was the bathroom, and kitty would go whenever I did, just so I wouldn't feel left out I guess.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:27 AM on May 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:27 AM on May 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yep, they organize this somehow, I’ve never been able to figure out how but over twenty five years of multiple cats in various configurations I’ve always seen this.
posted by Stacey at 6:39 AM on May 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Stacey at 6:39 AM on May 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'll just add a different experience, which is mostly no. I've always had at least two cats. There will often be a clear preference for a particular box, but beyond that no noticeable pattern about how they organize their litterbox use.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:17 AM on May 29, 2022
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:17 AM on May 29, 2022
It's a union rule. YMMV according to your municipality. Check with the local representative for the latest voting results.
Pray they don't go on strike.
Lucky and Snowy were pretty much outdoor inclined, but made use of the sunroom box enough to keep their dues from going up. The vegetable garden was particularly appreciated. RIP.
posted by TrishaU at 8:48 AM on May 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
Pray they don't go on strike.
Lucky and Snowy were pretty much outdoor inclined, but made use of the sunroom box enough to keep their dues from going up. The vegetable garden was particularly appreciated. RIP.
posted by TrishaU at 8:48 AM on May 29, 2022 [13 favorites]
TrishaU, I can’t tell you how much I needed the giggle I got from thinking about the cats’ union.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:11 AM on May 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:11 AM on May 29, 2022 [2 favorites]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7149619/
Consultations in Feline Internal Medicine :
Behavior of Single Cats and Groups in the Home : Penny L. Bernstein
If pet house cats regard themselves as part of the same lineage i.e. family, they won't use schedules and physical distance to avoid each other and/or fight over resources like laps, food bowls, or litterboxes.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:06 PM on May 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
If pet house cats regard themselves as part of the same lineage i.e. family, they won't use schedules and physical distance to avoid each other and/or fight over resources like laps, food bowls, or litterboxes.
I wonder if that's why the tabby twins I had in high school, littermates who came to us at the age of four weeks, liked to use the box together.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:37 PM on May 29, 2022
I wonder if that's why the tabby twins I had in high school, littermates who came to us at the age of four weeks, liked to use the box together.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:37 PM on May 29, 2022
The last time I had two cats, we had two catboxes and each cat had his own preferred box and they both peed in the front and shat in the back. Now that I only have one cat, he uses both boxes and pees in front and shits in back. Farther back in history, I had two cats, two boxes and everybody shat in the right box front and back, and both peed in the left box in front.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:40 PM on May 29, 2022
posted by a humble nudibranch at 9:40 PM on May 29, 2022
We live with two cats who share one huge litterbox that I based on a large rectangular storage container so that I could keep it filled with a deep enough bed of softwood clumping litter that the clumps almost never extend all the way to the bottom. That makes them much easier to remove in one piece.
My daily archaeological investigation and raking of our bathroom Zen garden, along with random observations of who has been using it, shows that Juno usually wees right in the middle, Luna prefers the back right and front right corners, and both of them crap more or less at random. They're also both apparently fascinated by the whole process of dumping and flushing their collected scat, though I have yet to achieve translation of that fascination to actual toilet training.
They don't contend seriously for their shared box. Occasionally one of them will sneak up behind the blast shield and jump straight over the top while the other is inside, but I'm pretty sure that's for shits and giggles rather than anything territorial because the litter box is by no means the only place where that kind of play regularly happens.
If pet house cats regard themselves as part of the same lineage i.e. family, they won't use schedules and physical distance to avoid each other and/or fight over resources like laps, food bowls, or litterboxes.
That fits with my experience. Juno and Luna were rescue littermates who arrived here within a week of each other and they're pretty casual about the whole thing. Mr Puddy, now deceased, didn't care at all for sharing his box with them and would swipe if approached while on it. They pretty quickly learned to time their own visits not to coincide with his.
You folks who can be bothered maintaining multiple boxes forever have my undying admiration.
posted by flabdablet at 1:49 AM on May 30, 2022
My daily archaeological investigation and raking of our bathroom Zen garden, along with random observations of who has been using it, shows that Juno usually wees right in the middle, Luna prefers the back right and front right corners, and both of them crap more or less at random. They're also both apparently fascinated by the whole process of dumping and flushing their collected scat, though I have yet to achieve translation of that fascination to actual toilet training.
They don't contend seriously for their shared box. Occasionally one of them will sneak up behind the blast shield and jump straight over the top while the other is inside, but I'm pretty sure that's for shits and giggles rather than anything territorial because the litter box is by no means the only place where that kind of play regularly happens.
If pet house cats regard themselves as part of the same lineage i.e. family, they won't use schedules and physical distance to avoid each other and/or fight over resources like laps, food bowls, or litterboxes.
That fits with my experience. Juno and Luna were rescue littermates who arrived here within a week of each other and they're pretty casual about the whole thing. Mr Puddy, now deceased, didn't care at all for sharing his box with them and would swipe if approached while on it. They pretty quickly learned to time their own visits not to coincide with his.
You folks who can be bothered maintaining multiple boxes forever have my undying admiration.
posted by flabdablet at 1:49 AM on May 30, 2022
> though I have yet to achieve translation of that fascination to actual toilet training.
I'm not sure if this is desirable - it makes it harder to monitor your cats' health in terms of urinating and defacating regularly.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:34 AM on May 30, 2022
I'm not sure if this is desirable - it makes it harder to monitor your cats' health in terms of urinating and defacating regularly.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:34 AM on May 30, 2022
We had a cat who just started using the human toilet one day with no training. She came from the feral colony near our house and had no previous human family, so we knew she hadn’t been trained by someone else.
(She also liked to drink black coffee whenever somebody’s mug was unattended.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:45 PM on May 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
(She also liked to drink black coffee whenever somebody’s mug was unattended.)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:45 PM on May 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
The other problem with transitioning your cat from litter box to flush toilet - if they fall in, they're not going to trust the toilet, or the box.
posted by sebastienbailard at 6:03 AM on May 31, 2022
posted by sebastienbailard at 6:03 AM on May 31, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by freethefeet at 5:05 AM on May 29, 2022