Why is my cat pooping on the floor all over the house in stead of his litter box?
Background:
Our cat Sherman is going to be about 2 years old in February. We adopted him from a kill shelter last February and they said he was about a year old. They caught him as a stray.
We took him home and he was fine. The only problem we have had with him is when he ate some string (plastic) from our son's b-day balloons. He was pooping and puking in the bathroom by his liter box (which was fine because the floor was linoleum).
We had problems with the house so we moved in November of 2007.
He took the move well, except he has broken out of the house 2 times now. He always stays on the porch and meows until we realize that he is missing.
Now we have a problem:
We have lived here for 3 going on 4 months. He adjusted perfectly fine. Everything couldn't be going better. We feed him dry cat food (currently it is 9Lives Daily Essentials; Healthy Skin & Coat w/ Omega 3 Fatty Acids) and usually half a can of tuna twice a week (so about a can a week).
This week my husband was walking down the kitty supply aisle in the store and saw some wet cat food on sale and thought it would be a nice change. It is Disney The Aristocats brand… various flavors. We fed him one can and Sherman sniffed at it and turned away but eventually ate it. A couple of days later while I was making myself some tuna salad I gave him another can of the wet cat food. The next morning or the morning after Sherman pooped on the floor. Not just in one spot. He pooped in three. One by our son's bathroom door. One in the corner in the dining room and a line of poop on the kitchen floor. All wet and soupy. We cleaned it up and went about our business.
Later as I was doing some homework and everyone was off doing their thing Sherman started the pathetic meowing and walking in a circle in the kitchen. I ignored it as he usually does this when he is near the back door. Then I noticed him sitting in the dining room cleaning his rear. So I went and looked and he had pooped again. We figured it was the food or something so I cleaned it up and he was fine the rest of the night.
The next day he was all playful and his normal self. We were eating dinner and my hubby gave him a piece of pork, which he downed like crazy. I told my hubby if that made him sick he was cleaning it up. Sherman was fine all day and the rest of the night. He was sitting with me in bed and left to go eat. My hubby heard him meowing in the hall again and went to check on him… he didn't see any poop so he thought he was meowing over the door again. I never noticed him come back into the bedroom. I went out to tell my husband something and came back into the bedroom and smelled poop again. I looked in the bedroom and in the bathroom it stunk. I turned on the light and saw a puddle of poop next to the toilet. I called hubby in to clean it up. We have now been keeping all doors closed unless we are in them, awake. When we sleep we keep the door shut.
Today he has had only dry food. He has not meowed like that and he has not pooped anywhere. Why is he not going to the litter box? We just don't understand what is going on. The only thing we have done any differently is change his litter to "The Perfect Litter" which is supposed to detect Flutid in cats by changing the litter color. He has had no problems before and we keep his box scooped. We have been using this litter for about 2 months now.
What should we do? We rent. We don't understand what is going on with him and why he is doing this now. We thought about making him an indoor/outdoor cat but when I open the door he won't go out. If this keeps going on we are going to have to get rid of a really awesome cat. We would all be heart broken and so would our 4-year old son.
Help!!!
Anytime you change food, or give them something different to eat, expect tummy trouble.
This is from both the new food you fed him, and the pork hubby gave him.
His system didn't completely recover from the new food when it got something different, which irritated the situation all over again.
When animals are sick, all bets are off. You can't predict their behavior.
They may get cranky and snap/bite, they may hide from beloved human friends, and they definitely don't "go" where they should.
The sickness confuses animals.
He might have cramps, or it just might not feel like he should get to the litter box.
It could be he couldn't make it to the box.
Once he's better, he'll be fine.
FEED HIM NOTHING BUT THE FOOD HE'S USED TO.
Let his system recover. It'll take about a week.
Confine him until he's better. Just keep him in the bathroom.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:51 am
Anytime you change food, or give them something different to eat, expect tummy trouble.
This is from both the new food you fed him, and the pork hubby gave him.
His system didn't completely recover from the new food when it got something different, which irritated the situation all over again.
When animals are sick, all bets are off. You can't predict their behavior.
They may get cranky and snap/bite, they may hide from beloved human friends, and they definitely don't "go" where they should.
The sickness confuses animals.
He might have cramps, or it just might not feel like he should get to the litter box.
It could be he couldn't make it to the box.
Once he's better, he'll be fine.
FEED HIM NOTHING BUT THE FOOD HE'S USED TO.
Let his system recover. It'll take about a week.
Confine him until he's better. Just keep him in the bathroom.
References :
November 13th, 2008 at 1:07 am
sounds like he has a sensitive stomach just to let you know can food and tuna is not healthy at all tuna is high in sodium and can food is high in fat also some cats cant handle can food at all which tells me that its not good for him my vet always tells me to stay away from can and to look for the dry food that has the less coloring reason why is the companies spend alot of time fixin up what their food looks like they forget the nutrition which makes sense but seems like your goin to have to buy your lil kitty food for sensitive stomachs and retrain him in the kitt y litter
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November 13th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Never feed your cat tuna again! Contrary to popular belief, cats don't digest tuna all that well. The same can be said of most wet cat food. Dry food only and no milk or people food of any kind. Once his digestive system gets back to normal, maybe he'll be able to make it to the litter box. Good luck.
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November 13th, 2008 at 2:24 am
Changing his diet without slow transition can often cause loose or diarrhea. It often takes about over a period of 1-2 weeks to slowly transition old food to new food. My cats took about over 2 weeks transition from kitten to adult and they still had loose stool. Never change food just because the food is on sale. It's tempting for many owners but the consequence of having to take your cat to see a vet is more expensive than the money you saved on on sale food.
Beside the food, loose stool can also result from intestinal parasites, eating food your cat shouldn't be eating (pork given from the table), not enough fiber, stress, and possibly disease.
I suggest not to feed your cat table food or tuna. He may have a sensitive stomach that by giving him all these other food, it is giving his stomach more irration.
If you want to firm your cat's stool up a little, you can feed food that contains high in fiber or just drop your pet store to get Vetasyl fiber supplement.
I think it would be best if you can take samples of his stool to your vet to have them run lab test or just take Sherman in for a full check up.
Prolong loose stool can be fatal.
Best of luck and I hope Sherman gets well soon!!
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November 13th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Well strangely enough I have had the same experience and I thought that I was the only one with this problem. I had my cat for 1 year and she had no problem using her litter box. She was spayed and about 6 months later, she begin taking a dump all over the house in different places. I'm not sure what triggered the change because I can't remember if I had switched litter. I use to empty and clean out my cat's litter box completely when it was time to change it and I was told that I should not do that because I was eliminating her scent from the box. I was also told that I should leave a small portion of her litter before cleaning it in the box. There is a product called Litter Magnet that my vet suggested that I purchase. I was told to sprinkle it in her box and it will attract her to it. I tried it and my cat didn't buy into the product. I did purchase 3 other litter boxes and placed them in various places around the house to see if she would use them more frequently. I also heard that cat's can be picky and that if they don't like something they won't use it. At the time that all of this nonsense started my cat begin meowing at the door and therefore I started to let her out of the house even though I wanted her to be an indoor cat only. She now uses the bathroom outside. She sits by the door and we let her out when she starts whinning. She uses the litter box occassionally. So my suggestion is to stop giving him/ her wet food, my cat does damage after eating wet food. Possibly get a few more litter boxes and use a different litter in each box. That could be your problem there. Leave a tiny amount of old (used/dirty) litter when you scoop so that there's the scent left behind. I'm sorry if I'm not much help, I really just wanted to say something because I understand what you're going through.
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November 13th, 2008 at 3:14 am
It may have been the change in diet that gave him an upset stomach. If you have switched back to feeding him his regular food and the problem continues, then you need to take him to the vet for a health check.
If he had stomach ache, he may not have been able to make it to the litter box in time, or if he experienced pain when using the litter box, he may associate it with the box, and that may have put him off using it. Make sure that you thoroughly clean any soiled areas with enzymatic products, because as long as he can detect his own scent, he will be attracted to keep using those areas to toilet.
The Celia Haddon Cat Problem page, has a check list of 18 reasons why cats stop using their litter box along with advice on the most effective methods of cleaning.
http://www.celiahaddon.co.uk/pet%20problems/cats/frameset.html
Hope this helps.
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