Cat using the bathtub

by cheri
(ga.)

Kate,

I've been following your site for some time now and am indoctrinated on the behavorial aspect of cats urinating and poohing in places other than their litter trays. I do have a situation that seems a bit unique though.

My almost 11 month old male (he was born here at home so I've had him since birth) has taken up the habit of pooping in the bathtub every few days. Just pooping. There is a litter box in this bathroom so it gets cleaned out usually every 3-4 hours and there are 2 other trays that get cleaned every 10-12 hours - so messy trays cannot be the reason (and he does use all 3 trays most of the time). Of course, if he's going to pooh somewhere other than his tray, I'm very happy he's chosen the tub (which is easy to clean) but I sure would like to know the reason for this. It started when things were normal in the house, no upsets. There have been some upheavals since then but things are once again back to normal and this behavior hasn't stopped. I've used bleach, amonia and just soap and water to clean the tub afterwards but it still goes on. Any suggestions as to what is precipitating this?
Thanks for the help

Answer from KAte
Ah well as you already known from my article about Middening here on the site that this issue can be caused by anything big or small and sometimes not obvious to us mere Humans.

There is one thing for sure though, something is wrong for him to do this.

If he is still using the litter tray as normal as well then i wouldn't think that it was a physical illness, so we can put it down to behavioral. In which case discovering what on earth could be making your cat feel the need to scent mark will be the hardest thing.

If you are sure that there is no possibility of illness then your best option is to take your cat through the litter training method for a week or so to try and calm your cat down so that they no longer feel the need to carry out this behavior.

here is the page with this process on

https://www.our-happy-cat.com/cat-poo.html

Best wishes Kate

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