We talk in this article about some advice on what to do if your cat is urinating outside of the cat litter box. And it’s an actual behavioral problem, not a medical one.
Keep the litter box clean
The first thing you’re gonna want to do is make sure that you’re cleaning that cat litter box on a daily basis. The other thing is if you’re finding your cat is urinating somewhere else in the house, you may want to temporarily provide them with a cat litter box in that location as well.
The type of cat litter box
Trying to figure out why they’re not using the litter box may be worth it. Because if you have a litter box that’s got sides that are very high and your cat is overweight or starting to become arthritic, it may not want to step into that cat litter box. Not every type of litter will work for every cat.
Also, some cats are quite large and some litter boxes are quite small. You can even make your own cat litter box by buying a large plastic bin. Cutting it to have very low sides and putting litter in that. So that they can really just step into it.
Putting treats around the cat litter box
The other thing you can do is you can start putting treats around the litter box. I really like to do this without letting the cat know that you’ve put the treats there. If you do that your cat will just happen to find treats by the litter box. It’ll start coming around the cat litter box more often to find those treats. And it just may happen to have to use it at that time.
Stress and anxiety
Cats use a special type of urinary behavior (spraying) to mark their territories. And they will do more when they feel stressed.
You can try to engage your cat. If this is happening because of stress you could try to de-stress your cat by enriching its environment. You can give it toys to play with. You can use a laser pointer and run that along the walls and get a lot of exercise into your cat.
If some of these simple things are not working, you might want to work with your veterinarian on products that you could use that are anti-anxiety.
There are medications that you can go to. But there are also naturopathic supplements that may decrease anxiety in your cat and help it start using the cat litter box again. You have to take this behavior seriously. The longer it lasts, the more it’s ingrained and it’s harder to get rid of. So get on top of it right away.
Consult your veterinarian
If simple things you’re doing at home don’t work, you’re gonna want to call your veterinarian and get onto those other more serious options to intervene and fix the problem.
With our pets, behavioral problems can be worse than medical conditions. It’s hard to live with a pet that’s disrupting your home environment that much.
