Dear Meankitty,
I was wondering if you could give me some advice please. I have two cats - Tiny is about 15 or 16lbs and is 9 years old. The other one is called Monkey is about 18 months old. Tiny is male. Monkey is female - both are desexed.
I have provided 4 scratch trays in various locations within their precinct (which is most of the house and the enclsoed back verandah). They each have their favourite tray which unfortunately for me is the same one. The older cat being the equivalent of about 65 years is quite pernickity so I need to continually clean out the tray especially after the younger one has used it - any suggestions as to how I can persuade either one of them to try using the other trays?
I would be most appreciative of any advice you could give me.
Thank you,
Sharyl
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I get requests for catbox advice more frequently than anything else. Humans are so obsessed with bathroom behavior, I swan! So, what do you guys think? Any advice for Sharyl--from my human OR my feline visitors?
MK
Thursday, August 28, 2008
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3 comments:
First try putting the unpreferred box where the preferred is - maybe its location and you can find a more acceptable location for box #2. There may be reasons that seem good to the feline mind. At least one of my boys, for example, will not piss in the covered litter box and life was unpleasant for all until I figured it out and put a box #1 next to the covered litter box.
That failing, this human would be willing to try confining the younger (presumably less vengeful kitty) in a smallish area with therefore little choice but the unpreferred box and see whether that willingness persists post-confinement.
I'm sure the collective meanness of kitties have opinions on this suggestion.
Cheryl
An observation -- and then a suggestion.
I have 3 cats, all de-seced, 2 males and 1 females. For some reason, the elder male does not like for the female to use the same box he does. He appointed himself "litter box guardian" and would attack her after she dared to use "his" box. (The solution was to have another box at such a distance that he couldn't "guard" both.)
Since kitties like a clean box, my first suggestion would be not to be so conscientious about cleaning the preferred box to encourage using the others. But I suspect your persnickety male will react to that by "thinking outside the box"? (As my poor female did before we figured out the problem.) In that case, I agree with the earlier suggestion to perhaps have 2 boxes in the preferred location to see if that is it.
To think we spend so much time and mental energy trying to decipher feline latrine issues!
Murphy's slave,
Sharon
We have four cats -- three females and one male -- and they insist on using the SAME box. We clean it at least once daily, and things are working out well, amazingly enough.
One thing Sharyl could try is putting two absolutely identical litter boxes right next to each other in the preferred location. If the kitties are starting to use one of them more than the other, she could just switch their positions. This *might* spread the "load" across two boxes instead of just one.
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