10year old cat pooping outside the box

[rang_27]

Last week my 10 year old cat Levi decided to poop on the floor in front of the litter box. He is peeing in the box without a problem. He did have a UTI once that caused him to pee outside the box but once that was fixed that problem went away. He has now been pooping on the floor every day twice a day since last Thursday. He has an appointment with his vet, but I'm just wondering what experiences others have had in case this is behavioral and not health related.

I haven't changed litter. He is neutered, but not declawed (I could never do that to one of my babies). We have kittens in the house that I am working on finding homes for, but they have been there for at least 2 months now. I did have a cat that had a urinary blockage a couple weeks ago, and that cat is now in a cage in my bed room but those two never got along that well so I would think he would be happy Leon is not around him any more. The poop doesn't look like what I have seen come out of cats when they are constipated, and I felt his anal glands which didn't feel all that big to me. Like I said he has an appointment to go in this afternoon since this is new. Just looking for info and experiences.

thanks

 

[mservant]

Years of cleaning up after one of my girls. 

   Most of the comments and information you see is about urinating outside the box and it took me ages to see anything that might make sense, and my vet at the time was pretty useless. Have put a couple of comments in threads about this before but can't remember which ones.

  about your boy but hope for both of you that you find out soon, and hopefully resolve, what ever is  bothering him.

This was my experience:

After several years of being fine but tending to spray urine up the sides of any tray I tried, the more dominant of two females I used to have started to poop on the floor, near but not always next to the litter tray. She had always left her poop uncovered  which drove me nuts, and when she started to poop outside the box too initially I thought it might be an escalation of the marking thing. I put out two boxes but it made no difference, they carried on using the same one!  Tried different litters, everything. She had had a history of UTIs but when the behaviour started there was no evidence of anything current and I didn't put 2 n 2 together. A few years later when I read  a cat behaviour book which talked about avoiding things associated with pain things clicked and it immediately seemed to make sense. Peeing sore, pooping not - avoid box where pain happens. Then shortly after that I went to a new vet and they did a better examination of my cat and diagnosed a chronic bladder inflammation- the little soul was in constant pain and urinating was always a horrible experience for her.  I was left with her avoiding the litter tray other than for the nasty purpose she had learned it was for, and cleaning up after her poop. She only went in to the nasty box that caused her pain when she had to. I was sad to think of her in pain but relieved to have a better idea of why she was behaving in the way she did, AND that she urinated in the box - it would have been much harder to clean up and live with.   I've never seen any better explanation of why she started to do this.

Interested to see if anyone else had had anything like this and if there's been another reason, or way to resolve.

Hope you find something that works for you. 

 

[rang_27]

The truth is I am happy that it is poop and not pee. He is doing it consistantly in the same spot which makes it even easier to clean up, but of coarse I would prefer that he not poop on the floor. I also don't want to miss something health related.

 

[mservant]

If you have a decent vet and you haven't asked them about it yet, I'd go along.  It might be there's something there, either acute but not showing symptoms yet, or chronic and not showing any signs like my little one.  At least you would get an indication of whether Levi's unwell at all - then if it's more behavioural you've can act quickly and confidently try to do something about it. Most posts from people concerned about soiling where it's behavioural seem to involve pooping in really inappropriate places, not next to the box like our two cats have done. I know vets cost but my experience was that when this behaviour happened and there were no changes in the litter/box itself it resulted from a health problem.  See if anyone else has had a different experience though. All the best.