Although it is a rather unusual event, it may happen that your cat pees out of the litter box, generating a certain disappointment mixed with concern in the owner.
In fact, many owners mistakenly tend to think that the astute feline can do it only out of spite. Nothing more wrong. In reality, when a cat urinates out of the litter box, it wants to communicate discomfort. So what could be the reasons that induce a cat to pee outside the litter box?
Pee outside the Litter Box: Understand Why
The tendency to do the needs in the box is innate in cats: from an early age, in fact, the newly weaned kittens are able to immediately identify the litter as a place to fulfill their needs and hardly go to dirty elsewhere. Why? From an ethological point of view, cats, in nature, are instinctively led to hide their tracks, to avoid being preyed on by other animals.
This is why, when they need to fulfill their physiological needs, they look for a clean, soft, and excavate place in which to crouch, and then cover the excrement with the lower limbs. A behavior that is learned since cat puppies, thanks to the observation of the mother or other adult cats.
The fact that the domestic cat then pees out of the box represents an anomalous event, which should make every attentive and loving owner reflect and induce him to seek the reasons. The causes that can lead to similar behavior can be of various kinds.
The problem could be related to the type of litter that has been made available to him, to the place where it is located or to its poor management. The male cat, not sterilized, could be brought to urinate in inappropriate places, such as sofas, rugs, beds or floors, to mark the territory with its own urine, loaded with pheromones that communicate their dominance to other animals. Finally, the cat may have health problems.
Is this a health problem?
In the presence of a cat who repeatedly pees outside the litter box, the owner should, first of all, check his state of health, through an accurate visit to his trusted veterinarian. There are multiple pathologies of the feline urinary tract and not only that can cause pain when urinating.
Cats, in fact, react to pain by making dirty in unusual places. Before hypothesizing, therefore, behavioral problems should pay attention to any alarm bells: frequent passages in the litter, excessive licking of the genital area, slow urination, effort to urinate, bad smells or blood in the urine. Symptoms that can presuppose possible cystitis or even other more or less serious diseases. Only the veterinarian, with an accurate urine test, will be able to identify any pathologies in progress.
What If He Doesn’t Like The Box?
Gifts and haughty, sometimes picky and even a little perfectionist. Cats are creatures that love cleaning. Have you ever seen them rolling in the mud or some other marshy place? Never. Indeed, they are often caught intent in a painstaking cleaning of the back, legs, muzzle, and ears. It is therefore understood that if for some reason, the cat does not like the litter that has been made available to him, he may decide to pee elsewhere. There are many reasons why cat may think the litter box is inadequate.
The litter box may not be cleaned frequently enough, the sand inside it may be too hard, coarse or perfumed. The box may also be too small or positioned in a passageway or noisy, such as the dining room where the washing machine or dryer is often present.
There are also on the market closed boxes, equipped with overhead doors that could be insidious for the cat and arouse a certain diffidence in him. At the same time, the closed litter box may exhale bad odor, which we know is a cause of annoyance for the feline fussy.
How to Get the Cat Used To the Litter Box
The words “cat and educate” together in one sentence can actually seem like an oxymoron. Lovers and connoisseurs of the feline world know very well that the indomitable mustached creature hardly respects the rules that are imposed on it. The cat is a free and rebellious being and obeying any order goes against its nature. The same, however, leads him to be meticulous in the fulfillment of his needs. That’s why getting the cat used to the litter box is not an impossible mission. But how is this possible?
Kittens and Litter Box
If the kitten lived time with his mother before being welcomed into a family, he will surely have learned to do his own needs. In fact, cats, unlike dogs, often clumsy and approximate, learn to pee in the litter already in the first 4 weeks of life. The key thing will be to immediately show him the appointed place, accompany him, and let him explore with peace of mind. In a short time, he will understand that the litter box represents his personal bathroom and he will no longer pee around.
All Useful Tools
To prevent the cat from peeing outside the litter box, it is essential to implement some important precautions. The cat pee, in fact, once penetrated into the tissues or left for a long time on the floor takes on a really annoying and long-lasting smell.
This is why it is important, first of all, to avoid spilling urine, to put the cat at ease. The first step will be to choose the right box, which must be spacious, deep, accessible, and in a quiet place.
Equally basic is the maintenance of the litter, which must be cleaned at least once a day and refilled with medium-grain sand, not perfumed, which absorbs odors and agglomerating. To prevent the cat from dirtying the surrounding floor due to inexperience or error, there are soft rubber absorbent mats on the market that are excellent for cat paws and designed to keep the sand that came out of the litter during digging and the one that remained between the paws.
