Hi everyone!
I've been reading the forum for a long time but never got around to register.
My wife and I have 2 cats, Kai (6 years old) and Nanaki (5 months old) (both were adopted and don't look like any defined breed) and right now we have what seems to be a behavioural problem with Kai
Last year Kai was very constipated, to the point that he complained when going to the litter box and his vet gave him a laxative. The constipation was quickly solved, but Kai never used that litter box again to poop. No biggie, we thought, since we had 2 litter boxes and he was using the other one just fine.
However, last month Kai got constipated again. It got resolved quickly again and this time he didn't seem to have the same problem of avoiding the litter box. However, a couple of weeks after that we adopted Nanaki, and added a third litter box.
Kai is a VERY social cat, and Nanaki had been in a foster home for a month and had his vet checks and supposedly he was deparasited, so the introduction between the two was quicker than it would be with other cats: they were already sleeping together, playing together and grooming each other within 5 days. Thus, Kai started using the 3rd litter box.
Notice that I said that Nanaki was supposedly deparasited. Turns out he had a little respiratory infection and giardia, which apparently isn't affected by usual dewormers. Our vet gave him an antibiotic and two dewormers to tackle both. We weren't able to give him the pills so we mixed them in his wet food (our vet told us it was OK). Well, turns out that these two rascals were exchanging their morning food when we weren't looking; we discovered it because Kai developed diarrhea from the medication (we ruled out other causes with our vet). We put him on a special diet with probiotics and now both cats are perfect physically.
The problem now is that since he had diarrhea, Kai is pooping outside the litter boxes, right in front of them. We even bought a new one but he refuses to poop inside it aswell. We ruled out any physical cause with our vet and it looks like he is afraid of going inside the litter boxes, like he thinks that pooping inside a litter box is the reason he was in pain.
We tried to take off the top part of the new litter box, thinking that maybe if he sees it different from the others he might not associate it with his constipation and later diarrhea, but that wasn't enough and he's still pooping right in front of the litter box.
We don't know what else to try. He doesn't have any trouble going to the litter boxes to pee, so we have hope that he can still be "convinced" somehow that he's not going to be in pain for using them.
Have any of you dealt with something like this? What worked for you?
Thanks so much
I've been reading the forum for a long time but never got around to register.
My wife and I have 2 cats, Kai (6 years old) and Nanaki (5 months old) (both were adopted and don't look like any defined breed) and right now we have what seems to be a behavioural problem with Kai
Last year Kai was very constipated, to the point that he complained when going to the litter box and his vet gave him a laxative. The constipation was quickly solved, but Kai never used that litter box again to poop. No biggie, we thought, since we had 2 litter boxes and he was using the other one just fine.
However, last month Kai got constipated again. It got resolved quickly again and this time he didn't seem to have the same problem of avoiding the litter box. However, a couple of weeks after that we adopted Nanaki, and added a third litter box.
Kai is a VERY social cat, and Nanaki had been in a foster home for a month and had his vet checks and supposedly he was deparasited, so the introduction between the two was quicker than it would be with other cats: they were already sleeping together, playing together and grooming each other within 5 days. Thus, Kai started using the 3rd litter box.
Notice that I said that Nanaki was supposedly deparasited. Turns out he had a little respiratory infection and giardia, which apparently isn't affected by usual dewormers. Our vet gave him an antibiotic and two dewormers to tackle both. We weren't able to give him the pills so we mixed them in his wet food (our vet told us it was OK). Well, turns out that these two rascals were exchanging their morning food when we weren't looking; we discovered it because Kai developed diarrhea from the medication (we ruled out other causes with our vet). We put him on a special diet with probiotics and now both cats are perfect physically.
The problem now is that since he had diarrhea, Kai is pooping outside the litter boxes, right in front of them. We even bought a new one but he refuses to poop inside it aswell. We ruled out any physical cause with our vet and it looks like he is afraid of going inside the litter boxes, like he thinks that pooping inside a litter box is the reason he was in pain.
We tried to take off the top part of the new litter box, thinking that maybe if he sees it different from the others he might not associate it with his constipation and later diarrhea, but that wasn't enough and he's still pooping right in front of the litter box.
We don't know what else to try. He doesn't have any trouble going to the litter boxes to pee, so we have hope that he can still be "convinced" somehow that he's not going to be in pain for using them.
Have any of you dealt with something like this? What worked for you?
Thanks so much