wee problems...

[cass]

My kitten Lola (nearly a year old) squirts her wee backwards and does it all over her feet other times..she walks wee all through the house. Also..she prefers to poop away from the litter..ive just got her out of doing it in the bath..now she keeps going in my stand up dust pan. She hates litter so today i put an empty tray in the laundry with a tray with litter..Lola climbed in them both and then ended up in the one with litter but squirted her wee over both AND the floor!
Why is she doing this?

 

[red top rescue]

It sounds like Lola has "elevator butt" which is when their butt raises higher and higher when they urinate so it ends up being a spray.  You need to have a HOODED litter box and one that is higher in the back than in the front.  Do NOT have a door on it and make sure it has a vent on top because cats don't like trapped odors any more than humans do.  I have two cats who do this (both spayed females) and that solves the problem. 

You said she likes to poo away from the litter also, and some cats actually prefer to poo in one box and wee in the other, so the general rule of thumb is you need to have at least one more litter box than you have cats, so one litter box is never enough.  If she is getting her feet wet, but she is in the pan, then the litter is not deep enough or not absorbent enough and makes puddles.  Of course she would not like that!  You also said she "hates litter," but I would suggest she hates whatever kind of litter you are using now, so the trick is to find litter she LIKES. 

If she has been declawed, she will need to have a very soft litter, such as sWheat Scoop, which is made of wheat and is fine as flour, or Natures Miracle corn cob litter, which is made of ground up corn cobs.  If she has all her claws so her feet are not tender, then perhaps you might try Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract litter, which is quite fine like sand but has an attractant scent added to it.  I think you can get all of those through Amazon. 

I was farm sitting for a friend of mine who was traveling in Europe, and she had a cat who had been using her box to urinate but always would put her poo on the floor beside the box.  This woman had six different boxes with six different choices of materials for the cat to use, including pine and earth from outside and various litters.  But she had never tried the Dr. Elsey's Cat Attract.  It offers a 100% guarantee the cat will use it or your money back, so I bought a bag and set up a 7th litter box for her.  The cat used it to poo immediately,  When my friend returned from Europe, she wa stunned becaue the cat was using the box 100% and did not use the floor once.  She said the cat had been using the floor to poop for at least five years, ever since she brought her indoors -- and now, three years later, the cat is STILL using the box, and my friend says it is well worth it to use Dr. Elsey's litter!

 

[cass]

Wow..Lola does like to do wee and poo at different times and in different trays! Ok..when I say she does her wee on her feet..she spends so much time moving all the litter out the way to have a clean bare plastic part of the tray to wee..then her wee goes EVERYWHERE..all over her legs and feet..she sometimes shakes her feet after but mostly it does not bother her that she has done it all over herself..lol. i have soft recycled litter because i have a cat that was taste testing litter all the time and i was worried. This litter is soft and none of my cats are declawed.

If I put an empty tray in, Lola will get in the empty one and poop and then get in a tray with litter, move it all to one side and wee on herself..also its like she tries to wee on as much space as possible and sometimes she lifts her bum up and down in a shakey motion and its like watching a dog. If I watch, she wont go!

A higher tray is a good idea..i actually buy plastic wash basins as trays as they are about an inch higher than normal cat trays..can you reccommend a good high one?

Thanks for your reply!!

 

[red top rescue]

The best one made for Elevator Butts is made by Tidy Cats.  I'm not sure if they still make them because I've had this one awhile, but as you can see, the tray is high on all sides and higher on the back AND has a hooded cover which has "Tidy Cats" in block letters on the front.  The back of the bottom section is a full 10" high, and with the hood on the box, it measures 16" tall by about 20" long and 13" wide.    If you fill it quite high, she will not be able to get to bare plastic.  I use the Tractor Supply crumbled corn

cob litter (safe if they eat it) which is extremely absorbent

.

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• red top rescue
• Jun 19, 2014

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• red top rescue
• Jun 19, 2014

 

[red top rescue]

The other one very handy for cats who like to dig a lot and throw litter everywhere is the DOME.  I particularly like these for kittens because they are often the worst offenders for "playing in the sand box" activities.  In the first picture, the gold DOME is beside a regular deep hooded box, and one kitten is entering each box.  In the second picture, I have removed the top from the dome so you cna see how the inside is shaped.  The litter is in its own little area beside the stairs, and the stairs trap any litter from paws or that gets thrown around when they are digging.

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• red top rescue
• Jun 19, 2014

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• red top rescue
• Jun 19, 2014

The last picture is of my other dome beside an open litter box.  Domes are easy to find and worth the investment.

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• red top rescue
• Jun 19, 2014

 

[cass]

Cool..do they step in their stuff in the dome?

 

[red top rescue]

Can't tell if they step in it as nobody has diarrhea, and the litter absorbs all pee quickly like a sponge so they never have wet feet.  They do make a racket digging but nothing ends up on the floor.