Help figure out why the cat is suddenly having box complications.
October 5, 2022 8:08 AM Subscribe
Our six year-old tabby has a new habit. Two or three times a week we find one of his back legs caked in litter from toes up to the … uh … elbow? Vet says he's fine. Cat isn't happy when it happens, and neither are we. Any ideas about what's up? (Details about cat box behavior in the link.)
(Link for the tax authorities.)
Details which may or may not be relevant:
We moved a few months ago and he got a new box. (One of those pieces of furniture with a box inside and a mat to catch litter.) He used it without problems for the first two months. We're still using the same brand of litter, scooping just as often, same depth of litter in the box, same food, same water, etc.
He has always been very active in his box, scratching the sides/walls and tossing a lot of litter, but he's also always been clean when he comes out, until now. From the pattern, it looks like he's dunking a leg in the freshly soaked litter instead of wetting his leg and sticking it in the litter. He likes to perch right on the edge of the box when he pees, but he has never missed the box. It can happen any time of day. (Nobody's seen him do it. He's shy.)
Any ideas of what we can do to get him back to successful box behavior?
(Link for the tax authorities.)
Details which may or may not be relevant:
We moved a few months ago and he got a new box. (One of those pieces of furniture with a box inside and a mat to catch litter.) He used it without problems for the first two months. We're still using the same brand of litter, scooping just as often, same depth of litter in the box, same food, same water, etc.
He has always been very active in his box, scratching the sides/walls and tossing a lot of litter, but he's also always been clean when he comes out, until now. From the pattern, it looks like he's dunking a leg in the freshly soaked litter instead of wetting his leg and sticking it in the litter. He likes to perch right on the edge of the box when he pees, but he has never missed the box. It can happen any time of day. (Nobody's seen him do it. He's shy.)
Any ideas of what we can do to get him back to successful box behavior?
If you got a webcam, especially a motion activated one, maybe you could watch and see how it's happening.
posted by foxfirefey at 8:44 AM on October 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by foxfirefey at 8:44 AM on October 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yeah something is different with his body position now that the furniture is involved, most likely.
posted by bluesky78987 at 10:37 AM on October 5, 2022
posted by bluesky78987 at 10:37 AM on October 5, 2022
Just chiming in to agree, he is probably perceiving himself to be boxed in or something and doesn't feel he has as full a range of motion . . so he's stepping in the wet litter.
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:24 AM on October 5, 2022
posted by Medieval Maven at 11:24 AM on October 5, 2022
Mine does this occasionally. It's because he SITS in the litter as he pees.
posted by yellowcandy at 12:30 PM on October 5, 2022
posted by yellowcandy at 12:30 PM on October 5, 2022
I foster kittens and one of them did this exact same thing: constant scratching at the side of the (closed top) litter box and then also stepping into the feces and getting dried poop and litter stuck to the hind legs that I'd have to clean it off with a partial bath. I didn't solve the problem before they were adopted, but maybe an open top litter box would have helped.
posted by AlSweigart at 9:10 PM on October 6, 2022
posted by AlSweigart at 9:10 PM on October 6, 2022
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Something about the angles (or his perception of them) inside the furniture may change the way he's perching, causing him to slip down and use a foot to catch himself in the newly wet litter.
He is a handsome boy.
posted by nkknkk at 8:39 AM on October 5, 2022 [2 favorites]