Does Your Cat Need Two Litter Boxes?
Your cat might need two litter boxes. Has that ever occurred to you? I have never heard of it but it may be the case that, rarely, a domestic cat may need two litter boxes as some cats have a propensity to poop in one place and pee in another (or vice versa).
Ruth who is Monty’s guardian says that Monty – who is an indoor/outdoor cat using a large enclosure – likes to pee in one place and then walks about fifteen feet away to poop. He just likes to pee and poop in deferent places spaced by about fifteen feet.
Ruth writes:
“Today he and I were out in his enclosure in the morning and he was doing his business by the back fence. He peed in one spot– I know he was urinating because I could actually hear it hitting the ground as I walked by– a copious amount.
Then he walked about ten to fifteen feet away and started digging another hole. Sure enough, before long he was dropping a big poopie into that hole.
Why? What would be the advantage to a cat to put their pee in one place and their poop in an entirely different spot? Or is there no reason, just a personality quirk on the part of some cats?”
Cat uses litter tray
Books on cat behaviour don’t really refer to this. Experts may refer to the need to pee outside the litter box because of a urinary tract infection (cystitis often) but then there are stories of perfectly healthy cats pooping in the litter box and peeing outside it, sometimes on a different sort of surface such as a hard surface. Under these circumstances the behavior implies that the cat prefers a different surface to pee than when pooping. The hard surface would be non-absorbent and therefore the pee would smell more. This may be a reason or it might just be a preference.
So what is behind healthy cats wishing poop and pee in different places separated by a distance that the litter box cannot accommodate?
It must a natural urge. For a cat, peeing and pooping has two purposes: to get rid of waste (obvious 🙂 ) and to leave scent marks to warn others that this is there home range. We all know that by now.
There cannot be a physical barrier to peeing and pooping in the same place. Therefore I am driven to conclude that the most likely reason is because the cat wishes to maximise his scent marking. Poop doubles up as a form of scent marking. Pee is often used for scent marking when it is sprayed horizontally onto surfaces such as a gate and so on.
But pee which is just deposited in the usual way when at toilet is also a form of scent marking in the wild for the wild cats. Sometimes wild cats have toilet areas at major junctions within their territory.
Therefore perhaps Monty is scent marking in a more purposeful manner by spreading it out thereby making it more effective along the boundary of his territory. To deposit pee and poop in the same place is less effective if scent marking is the goal. Or as Ruth suggests it may simply be a individual cat characteristic with no practical purpose. He just fancies doing it that way.
For healthy indoor cats, pooping inside the litter box and peeing outside could be a result of stress. When a cat is stressed he is more likely to want to scent mark. He is more likely to want to maximise the effect of scent marking. This may compel a cat to spread his scent around the home which means pooping in the litter box and peeing outside it at some distance.
A key factor here would be how far away from the litter box does the cat pee. If it just outside the box then the cause is likely to be something different – a mistake perhaps. But ten feet away or more might indicate a stressed cat maximising marking territory.
I stress though that this should not be mixed up with an ill cat with cystitis who pees bloody urine in small drops outside the box. This is a health problem and nothing to do with cat behaviour characteristics.
It could be argued that for some cats the litter box is too small. Sometimes they are obviously too small but sometimes they may be too small to accommodate the cat’s personal preferences rather than his size.
Do you have any nice ideas?
P.S. Once a cat has peed outside the litter box he’s likely to use the same spot as it becomes a marking point. An enzyme cleaner should be used.
P.P.S. Some cats have an aversion to certain types of litter. This may have an impact on where he poops and pees.
Michael,
Thanks for sharing about Monty’s bathroom habits, lol. I found his behavior interesting and I hoped others would as well. I like all your theories. I do think he is spreading his scent as far as possible back there. I also noticed, now that you mention it, a different consistency and depth to the leaves/soil in his two toilet areas. He seemed to dig deeper for the poo, into more dead leaves and even into the dirt beneath. He covered it more carefully. It seemed like he did not dig around as much or as deeply prior to urinating and he spent a little less time covering it up. It all could have to do with scent marking.
He will use his litter box, hop out, watch me scoop it and hop back in and use it again. So there is no physical separation and it is into the same litter, but he definitely likes to separate poop and pee. I scoop his box a lot so that works out.
My sister’s cat Kobe (who passed away recently) liked to pee in the living room. This started way before he became feeble from old age. I always told her he wanted a separate litter box in there. She said she did not want a litter box in her living room. So she kept cleaning cat pee off that rug because whether she wanted it or not the cat wanted it. Even the best cleaning products did not deter him from returning to that spot.
I think sometimes you just can’t fight nature and if there is some instinct driving your animal companion to behave a certain way you may as well just give in and find a way to accommodate him.
Ruth
Meanwhile, at my own home, both cats use the same extra-large litter box (in the bathroom). The litter box is on a boot tray, so when they step out, litter is caught on the ridges of the tray to lessen litter tracked on the floors. The litter itself is a very fine cedar chips. Both seem to like it. I scoop whenever I’m in the bathroom. Sometimes they even watch, especially when I’m cleaning it out. Once the fresh litter hits the box, they each take turns using it. Like Dee, good thing they share the box; otherwise, I’d be out of my mind with multiple boxes.
I think the number of cats needing 2 litter trays are few! You are well organised. I think an extra large litter is a neat idea. As they share they must be close.
One would think they were best buds and mostly they are. Every now and then they behave like any sibling and “pick on” each other…you know, the random paw swipe, then innocently looking away type of deal. Shadow will sniff Abby’s tail or neck rough and she hisses and smacks him. Then she does the same thing – sniffs his tail and back, only Shadow likes it, LOL!
When the litter box is dirty; however, both take turns doing the staring bit until I get up and they lead me to the box like a dog would lead its master. I swear, I’ve been thoroughly trained by these two.
Funny this article was published, since I just had this same exact scenario with a volunteer at our shelter. She’s got an indoor only cat, healthy, no issues of any kind including an absence of stress. For some unknown reason, apparently, he pees in one box and poops in another. The box he poops in has “Yesterday’s News” litter, which is recycled newspaper processed into small cylindrical pellets. When he pees, that box is filled with a crystal-type litter. Go figure. No one can figure out why, but he does his business in a litter box, so the volunteer says it’s OK with her. The cat also got a clean bill of health from the vet.
It occurred to me that some cats might like a substrate (I think that is the term for the type of litter material) for pee and another for poop. It is hard to figure out why. The reason might be the opposite of scent marking – scent masking (I like that!). Burying poop masks the odor. Perhaps the newspaper litter masks the smell better or at least he thinks it does although I’d have thought it was less good than silica.
I am just thinking aloud.
Monty definitely buried his poop under a lot more leaves and dirt than his pee. He spends a lot of time searching for just the right spot to do his business back there. It could be about just the right amount of scent marking vs masking. Very interesting.
I think that this is spot on (Oh my. I’m sounding more English by the day – as well as getting more senile).
In any case, I have several cats and several boxes.
It’s common for most to pee in one and, then, move to another to poo. It doesn’t seem to matter if another has peed or pood before in each box. I’m glad about that, because there’s no way I could double the number of my boxes here unless one became my bed.
So it isn’t just Monty! I had a feeling he was not all that unique in this respect and that others would have observed similar behavior from their cats.
I think one other factor is how often you clean. I have one box for two cats – I know that it’s not recommended, but it works for me so far, but I clean it multiple times a day. On weekends, whenever I see a cat use it or maybe went to a room and see that there is something there, I scoop. On weekdays, I usually scoop as soon as I wake up, then one more time before I leave for work. In the evening, I scoop as soon as I get home and then one more time before going to sleep. When I am on vacation, my 85-year old father scoops less often – usually 2-3 times a day, but it still seems to be enough.
A neighbor has only one cat and one litter box, and the cat occasionally goes next to it. When I asked her how often she scoops, she said only her husband does it and he does it every 3 days. I suggested to do it at least every day.
Yes, keeping the box clean is definitely important. Monty’s get scooped frequently. I work close to home so I pop in on my lunch breaks and check in on him, feed him a lunch he does not need (but thinks he does) and scoop his box if needed.