Hello all, I’m new here, and I’m also a new cat owner (or rather, guardian...). My partner and I adopted an adorable bundle of fluff called Percy, who is a blue British Shorthair. He’s now 10 weeks old. This is a post specifically concerning litter habits and I’d be very grateful for your collective expertise. I’m rapidly learning that cats are not as straightforward as dogs!
Everything had been more or less fine until yesterday evening and Percy was using his litter box properly for pee and poop. He’d had one little accident on the bed (which we think was because he couldn’t get off the bed confidently and couldn’t hold it) but other than that, all perfect. Yesterday, we decided to try clipping his claws as they were getting pretty sharp. To cut a long story short, I think we cut the nail incorrectly and we must have nicked the quick and hurt him. He bled a bit and was obviously pretty unhappy. We were (are) really upset that we hurt him and feel terribly guilty are going to take a lesson from the vet in how to clip nails properly. Later that night though, we had Percy on the bed with us and he peed in the exact same spot he had previously had his little accident... This evening, he also peed on a little rug we keep just near his litter tray.
He has used his litter tray today (I can tell from cleaning it) but we are wondering whether the litter might be hurting his paw as it heals up and he’d therefore rather pee on something really soft if he can - such as the bed, in an area he had previously designated as pee-friendly, or the rug right by the tray. We also made the big mistake of not using an enzymatic cleaner on the spot he had previously peed on, so there’s a good chance there was still some smell he could detect (but we couldn’t) on the bed.
We now have some enzymatic cleaner which we have used and have also removed the rug. We are also keeping him off the bed until we can see how this pans out. We just wondered whether anyone else had experience of this. We want him to be happy and this is all sending us a signal that he’s not.
Please help!
-Percy’s dad x
Everything had been more or less fine until yesterday evening and Percy was using his litter box properly for pee and poop. He’d had one little accident on the bed (which we think was because he couldn’t get off the bed confidently and couldn’t hold it) but other than that, all perfect. Yesterday, we decided to try clipping his claws as they were getting pretty sharp. To cut a long story short, I think we cut the nail incorrectly and we must have nicked the quick and hurt him. He bled a bit and was obviously pretty unhappy. We were (are) really upset that we hurt him and feel terribly guilty are going to take a lesson from the vet in how to clip nails properly. Later that night though, we had Percy on the bed with us and he peed in the exact same spot he had previously had his little accident... This evening, he also peed on a little rug we keep just near his litter tray.
He has used his litter tray today (I can tell from cleaning it) but we are wondering whether the litter might be hurting his paw as it heals up and he’d therefore rather pee on something really soft if he can - such as the bed, in an area he had previously designated as pee-friendly, or the rug right by the tray. We also made the big mistake of not using an enzymatic cleaner on the spot he had previously peed on, so there’s a good chance there was still some smell he could detect (but we couldn’t) on the bed.
We now have some enzymatic cleaner which we have used and have also removed the rug. We are also keeping him off the bed until we can see how this pans out. We just wondered whether anyone else had experience of this. We want him to be happy and this is all sending us a signal that he’s not.
Please help!
-Percy’s dad x
