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Certainly it's never a bad thing to rule out medical issues, but now that it sounds like more than one is going there it seems it's more likely to be too few boxes or related issue. 3 cats and one box is generally regarded as a recipe for this. It may only be manifesting now as your kitten gets older; when the kitten was little perhaps he and/or the other cats just didn't care as much. Now they do. Or something along those lines.
I think you may find you're to have to bite the bullet and set up another litter box, and the obvious place would be where they've already marred things with the smell. You can get a nice furniture-style enclosure for it so that it doesn't look ugly in the living room, but obviously you can't have the auto-flushing one in there. (You can try an auto-scooping one with dry clumping litter. Try Precious Cat Ultra as the litter, it clumps better than anything else I can remember using over the 16 years with my cat, and I've used several.) Or you may be able to make that a temporary location as you slowly over a period of days or weeks move it elsewhere in the home as they get used to having the additional box.
I have two boxes for my one cat, even though she rarely uses the second one. It's a 2-level house and she spends most of her time on one level so generally only uses the second one in the rare case that she's actually in its vicinity when she wants to go. We had a second cat for a while, and we got by with just two, and they did share (reluctantly and territorially, I'm sure, because they damn well wouldn't share anything else!) but ideally we would have had a third just in case. It didn't become an issue, luckily, but if it did I would have added one somehow even though the house is small.
I'm sure that "get another litter box or 2 or 3" isn't what you want to hear, and there's a chance it's not the problem, but I think there's a good chance it is. Good luck.
Well, the doctor said there is some territory issues (duh ) and no medical issues but he did say something about testosterone. He gave us some suggestions and we're following thru. We sprayed down the living room with apple cider vinegar and we also got another gallon of the Nature's Miracle. My wife also ordered another cat tree so now we have 2 6 foot multi-tier/perch trees. We also set up our back up box in the upstairs cat bathroom and we're using the cat genie crystals in that. We'll see what happens. Thank you for all of the input and suggestions.
Maggie, our first and the oldest of the bunch. She was once part of a hoarder's collection in a one room apartment. She fell off something during that time and has a bump in her chest. She doesn't like to be handled but she is a very sweet cat and probably my favorite.
This is our second cat, Bubbles. We got him when he was pretty young from a rescue group and he was a hyper teenager. Currently he is the most calm, chill, sweet and loving cat. He loves being held up to look out the window at the birds. We take him outside to play when it snows. He also sat on our laps while we drove from CA to TX when we moved.
And finally our little wild one, Porter. A friend of a friend had a surprise litter and we decided to take one. We first saw him when he was 2 weeks old and took him home at 8 weeks. He's sweet but a little terror lately.
First, I just have to say that Mr. Bungle is one of my favorite bands of all time, LOL!
Now, about the cats...yep, I had a similar issue when my youngest male got to a certain age and his hormones kicked in, even though both were neutered, territorial peeing ensued, and it would always be under a box. It was a nightmare, an expensive one at that. Both checked out fine medically, and even though I had 3 litterboxes for the two of them to use, it continued to happen. I tried everything from feliway to boxes with high shields, thinking maybe it was just going over the edge accidentally...no dice. Turned out to be the older of the two doing it, he was stressed because the younger guy got bigger than he was and was taking over the alpha role (the younger is a Maine Coon, and is getting quite huge). The only way I could keep my older guy happy was to give him his own space with his own box the other male did not have access to. It was hectic, rotating the cats so everyone would have time "out" with free reign (I also have a 15 yr. old female who hates all cats and will poop in corners if she is forced to interact with them, ever.) So I was basically rotating 3 cats every couple of hours, fun, LOL! When my mom's elderly cat passed away, she was devastated and once she was over the grief, she wanted another cat in the house, so she ended up taking the older guy, mainly because he and her dog are best friends (the dog was a foster of mine when I first took the cat in as a kitten, so they were strongly bonded by the time mom fell in love with the dog and decided to snatch him up herself instead of letting me adopt him to someone else). He's very happy now because he's the only cat, and doesn't have to compete or feel threatened. Some cats just do better than others in multiple-cat settings...hopefully in your case it's just that you need more boxes! Best of luck to you, hang in there!
Well, we were doing fine for a while. Had a couple of pee issues in the living room corner over the weekend. Also, yesterday and today we had some poo presents in the same area. We added another catbox and it seemed to be working. We also keep spraying the living room area with nature's miracle and/or apple cider vinegar. The vet said that nothing is medically wrong with any of them so I guess it is a territory issue.
I have a third cat box coming today and I think I'll set it up in the living room and slowly move it each day towards the "cat bathroom" upstairs.
I have a third cat box coming today and I think I'll set it up in the living room and slowly move it each day towards the "cat bathroom" upstairs.
Because of territorial issues, it may be best to have a litter box on each floor. Or if you must have more than one on a floor, space them as far apart as possible.
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