Why is my cat pooping on the floor?

August 2, 2023 8:21 AM

In the last month, my 15-year-old cat has pooped on the floor 3 different times. Each time was about 2 weeks apart, and between these incidents, he pooped in his litter box as normal.

The quality of the floor poops has been no different than those of the ones in his box. His litterbox is in the basement and his floor poops have been in the general vicinity of the litterbox - not more than a few metres away from the box. His litter box has been in the same location in our house for 10 years and the litter has not changed. His litter box is cleaned daily. Besides a thyroid condition that is under control with medication, he's a healthy old cat. What could be going on here?

posted by toby_ann to Pets & Animals (8 answers total)

Is the poop sticking to his bum and then he drags it out of the box? My cat used to sometimes have a poop that had a bit of fur or hair embedded in it, and the hair would stay in her butt and then dangle until it shook itself loose as she jumped and walked away from the litter box. It wasn't always super obvious that there was a hair physically holding it onto the cat for that few extra seconds.

Another answer, mild cat dementia. Cat kind of forgets what the procedure is and just sort of approximates it instead.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 8:25 AM on August 2, 2023 [11 favorites]

Just checking that you don't also have a dog? My pup will, despite knowing full well litter boxes are off limits, take the occasional poop out of the box and then leave them in random places when she's done with them.
posted by cgg at 8:40 AM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Could he be constipated? We've had a couple of instances of stomach upset in our older cat that resulted in failure at the litterbox and forgetting herself on the floor later. This has been managed (with vet approval) by adding a very small daily dose of Miralax to her food - 1/8 to 1/4 tsp depending on how hot and dry the weather is.
posted by Frowner at 8:41 AM on August 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

My eldercat started doing that and it turned out to be impacted anal glands. One uncomfortable and undignified vet visit later, she was fine.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:03 AM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Did the accidents happen at a time of day when the area around the litter box is poorly lit?
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:09 AM on August 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another possibility that hasn't been mentioned yet: is it possible the cat has arthritis or some other sort of pain in his hind-quarters? We have a floor-pooper and this has been determined to be the main culprit.
posted by May Kasahara at 10:19 AM on August 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Another vote for the potential of dingle-berries - sometimes happens with cats.

That said, given this is a new behavior and your cat is old, I'd call your vet.
posted by coffeecat at 12:12 PM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Vet time. Our cat was doing this, turned out he was constipated and was trying to poop in the box but it wasn't fully exiting until later. Finally figured it out when we caught him wandering around with a poop hanging most of the way out. Vet made sure nothing else was wrong then instructed us to add a little miralax in his food, and that helped tremendously.
posted by Jacqueline at 4:29 PM on August 2, 2023