Cat Shames Self, Family

n.catenthusiast

Hi there,
bit of a pickle. At the ripe old age of 8, my cat has now decided it's perfectly acceptable to use the shower as a toilet. it's not.

She's always stayed in at night, and once in a blue moon would poop in the shower. We didn't mind, as it was easy to clean up, and better than the carpet.

As of the last few months the situation has spiraled out of control...just now she pooped AND peed in the shower. Never before has she had the audacity to do this in broad daylight. It's time to put the foot down.

I hasten to add that although she's 8 she is also perfectly healthy. This isn't a medical issue-it's an attitude thing.

I appreciate that cats are not particularly open to the concept of being trained, expecially as they get older, but I've got to try something. Would the technique for puppies work at all?
It's not something I'd be keen to do, but if there was a chance of success I might reconcil myself to it, even if it is a tad-Guantanamo Bay-like behaviour.


All help would be much appreciated!

Mr. Presentable

Keep a dog in the bathroom.


Seriously, break the habit by keeping the door closed.

abouttobebanned

Don't let her near the shower?

Don't let her upstairs?

No brainers really

The Sweeper

Owner shames self, family.

Cat litter tray. Buy one.

If you don't provide a facility for your cat to use the toilet when it needs to go, then yes, it will use whatever else is handy. You don't lock yourself in your bedroom for 10 hours a night and restrict access to the toilet, so why do you expect your cat to last while she's in at night, if she's normally an indoor-outdoor cat and usually does her business outside?

If you provide her with a cat litter tray - which I suggest you put in the same bathroom where she uses the shower tray - she may take to it without needing to be trained. Most owners don't "train" their cats to use a litter tray - you just make the litter tray the most desirable place to use as a toilet, by capitalising on a cat's own natural fastidiousness. They love to dig their toilet and then hide their poos. Can't do that on the carpet.

Finally on the medical front - if your cat is having trouble controlling the flow and/or frequency of urine, is going to the toilet more or demonstrates any difficulty - straining or miaowing when urinating - then let the vet be the judge of whether or not it's a perfectly healthy cat.

A litter tray and a lot of praise is all you need.

pajodublin

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

Owner shames self, family.

Cat litter tray. Buy one.

If you don't provide a facility for your cat to use the toilet when it needs to go, then yes, it will use whatever else is handy. You don't lock yourself in your bedroom for 10 hours a night and restrict access to the toilet, so why do you expect your cat to last while she's in at night, if she's normally an indoor-outdoor cat and usually does her business outside?

If you provide her with a cat litter tray - which I suggest you put in the same bathroom where she uses the shower tray - she may take to it without needing to be trained. Most owners don't "train" their cats to use a litter tray - you just make the litter tray the most desirable place to use as a toilet, by capitalising on a cat's own natural fastidiousness. They love to dig their toilet and then hide their poos. Can't do that on the carpet.

Finally on the medical front - if your cat is having trouble controlling the flow and/or frequency of urine, is going to the toilet more or demonstrates any difficulty - straining or miaowing when urinating - then let the vet be the judge of whether or not it's a perfectly healthy cat.

A litter tray and a lot of praise is all you need.

+1

My cats poo or wee in the shower the odd time
but ONLY when the litter tray isnt clean
Litter tray is the way to go
and if you have a spare few quid buy the self cleaning one
if not make sure you clean it regularly

Lauragoesmad

If you have a door on your shower leave it closed. This is how my cat learned to use the loo when shes stuck in the house. I was amazed!:eek: My Dad was calling her Mr Jinkzy for days! Now all we have to do is teach her to flush!

carwash_2006

Could be a bad idea to teach the cat to flush

MsFifers

My stinkin' cat uses the bath as a litter tray all the bloody time! And trust me - its not because the litter trays aren't clean. I have tried changing the litter material, putting extra trays around, leaving water in the bath (he just hooked out the plug with his paw).

I think he just likes the bath for this purpose. Don't ask me why!

To the OP - they do say if a cat changes its toileting habits it could be the onset of a urninary tract problem. Just be sure on that front before trying anything else.

The Sweeper

Least it uses somewhere that can be cleaned easily!

My housemate's cat is a peculiar animal. My housemate is one of those 'my animal is cute and fluffy, look she wants to eat off my plate/drink from my bowl/sleep on my pillow/wash my face/dig her claws in to make sure I don't move when she's comfortable on my lap' sort of people.

She's never said no to her cat, not once, not ever. Sometimes in the house if the front door hasn't been shut properly, all three cats will go up to the screen door to have a look through. If I go up and hold the front door, and sternly say "Get in!", my two cats reverse themselves back into the house and go do something else. My housemate's cat sits there looking at me with this "you can't possibly be speaking to me" face.

The really weird thing is how my housemate's cat is starting to interact with my housemate. The cat is just about two years old, so she's just reached full maturity. On two recent occasions, when my housemate has made the cat do something it doesn't want to do (e.g. she'll take it into her room with her to sleep on the bed at night, where it might have already been asleep on a chair or something), the cat actually attacks her. Seriously. Physically goes for her.

The other thing it does is 'revenge toilet'. Baskets of clothes. Piles of paperwork. (Always my housemate's clothes, and her paperwork.) The day I lost the plot over it, I got home and the cat had peed on the kitchen counter. Right on it. Twice. Both sides of the sink.

We support the theory of 'cats with restricted outside access', so our two are currently inside-only boys until we move house and can allow them access to a back garden with a cat-proof fence. My housemate fluctuates between keeping her cat in and letting her out - she'll let her out a few days in a row, and then something will happen like she'll kill a bird, or my housemate will get home to find the cat down by the side of the road - she reacts by then keeping it in for a few days. It was during one of these inside episodes that the cat peed on the counter.

That same inside-only week, it peed in a basket of onions, a pile of clean towels and crapped in the corner of my house-mate's study.

The only solution has been to make an enormous fuss of the cat, and - bizarrely - give her an indoor litter tray made out of a plastic tupperware crate, so she literally has a litter tray that's three times the size of a normal one.

Themadhouse

a cat will use the shower for the same reason as they pee in your bed or in the luandry basket, because they all smell of you and they think that if your scents are there it's ok to use these places.
Keep the bathroom door closed.