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- Sep 6, 2011
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I adopted two male cats last month - William is 11 and Galahad is 3. William is the dominant one, but they haven't been fighting after that first week with us.
We've been having some litter box issues with William which may have been going on this entire past month, but we just noticed it last week when we had two instances where he pooped outside of the box, just a few feet from it. The next time, we stepped in pee that was also a few feet from the box. After that, we set up a video camera to see what was happening. Everything was going fine for a few days, but I just checked the video from last night. He walks up the box, looks at it, turns around to leave the room, and then squats and pees right by the door.
When we adopted William, they told us he had arthritis in his hind end that causes him to walk funny. I've had a cat with arthritis in his hind end before and William isn't acting like that at all. He definitely loses control of his legs at certain points (jumping off of things, running fast, etc.), but I'm not convinced he's in pain. I think something else is going on there that we still need to investigate.
I took him to a vet after that and he's got hyperthyroid with VERY early kidney disease -- so early that it was only picked up on the SDMA test and not the other bloodwork. His other bloodwork was good.
The litter box is very big, with one low side and three high ones. We had a lid on it at first but I thought that may have been causing the issues so I removed it.
I know there are a lot of variables here. What's the first thing you would try? Getting a second box? Obsessively cleaning it (I'm doing it once every 1-2 days now)? Trying a different litter?
We've been having some litter box issues with William which may have been going on this entire past month, but we just noticed it last week when we had two instances where he pooped outside of the box, just a few feet from it. The next time, we stepped in pee that was also a few feet from the box. After that, we set up a video camera to see what was happening. Everything was going fine for a few days, but I just checked the video from last night. He walks up the box, looks at it, turns around to leave the room, and then squats and pees right by the door.
When we adopted William, they told us he had arthritis in his hind end that causes him to walk funny. I've had a cat with arthritis in his hind end before and William isn't acting like that at all. He definitely loses control of his legs at certain points (jumping off of things, running fast, etc.), but I'm not convinced he's in pain. I think something else is going on there that we still need to investigate.
I took him to a vet after that and he's got hyperthyroid with VERY early kidney disease -- so early that it was only picked up on the SDMA test and not the other bloodwork. His other bloodwork was good.
The litter box is very big, with one low side and three high ones. We had a lid on it at first but I thought that may have been causing the issues so I removed it.
I know there are a lot of variables here. What's the first thing you would try? Getting a second box? Obsessively cleaning it (I'm doing it once every 1-2 days now)? Trying a different litter?