Cats urinating or defecating outside the litter box: 4 steps to stop the behavior
1) The first thing to do whenever your cat stops using the litter box is to get it checked for a urinary tract infection. I don’t care how healthy you think your kitty is, before trying any other method of solving your cat’s litter box problem: take your cat to the vet and have the little hairball checked for urinary infections They are the leading cause of junk box avoidance.
2) The next thing you would do, especially if your pet is urinating / pooping on a bed or other furniture, is to go out and find something to cover and protect that furniture, that will also discourage the cat from wanting to spend time on it. .
Either:
- A large plastic drop cloth (very inexpensive, can be found at the hardware store or any other store that sells painting supplies).
- A snug mattress cover, if it’s a bed where your cat is urinating or pooping. (More expensive but a little more attractive, less flashy).
- A sheet of thick vinyl (can be purchased from Wal-Mart’s fabric department)
- Or something similar. You can get creative with this. I think one person mentioned that they had used a tablecloth!
The goal is to protect the furniture during training while at the same time discouraging the cat from wanting to spend time there. (You can also use these suggestions to cover a specific spot on the floor or carpet if that’s where your cat is relieving himself.)
Even if you don’t discourage kitty from trying to go to the bathroom, trust me, after a single urination and ending up standing in a puddle of her own urine, your cat will never do that again!
3) Keep the area covered whenever you are not using it and whenever the jack has unsupervised access. That means when you leave the house, keep the doors closed or cover the furniture / carpet / bed / etc.
It would be wise to go one step further and cover other furniture as well, even furniture the cat hasn’t been using as a potty, just to be safe. Sometimes simply doing this will solve the problem on its own because the cat will have no other suitable option to go to the bathroom other than the litter box.
Think about it. If there are no soft beds or layers to pee in, and the only other option is the kitchen floor or something like that, they will almost certainly opt for the litter box.
No matter what other method you are using to retrain the cat, I would recommend doing this step because it will save its belongings and usually speed up the process at the same time.
4) Consider looking for a more absorbent litter. If you think about it, one of the reasons a cat would like to urinate in the bed is because of how quickly urine is absorbed. Your cat may be annoyed by how slowly the litter absorbs urine.
If your cat’s paws get wet while urinating in the box, or his urine splashes on them, it is obviously not a very pleasant situation. So they are forced to look for an alternative that is a little neater and cleaner. (At least for them!) It may be a good idea to find a sand that absorbs more quickly.
If you have a kitten, make sure that the problem is not just the fact that the kitten cannot get out of bed. Sometimes people will play with the kitten on the bed and being so far off the ground, the kitten will not want to jump up to go to his litter box. So naturally, they just delete right there. That’s something to keep in mind if you are dealing with a small kitten (or an older cat with joint problems).
As for cleaning blankets or other machine washable material, actually, any material that can be washed should be cleaned very thoroughly with some type of enzymatic cleaner. It is very important to completely eliminate the smell of urine.
In some cases, the situation that caused the litter box problem will be resolved; however, the cat will continue the behavior either out of habit or because its scent is still there. It is therefore essential that all “evidence” of the accident is removed.
