Expert: Norman Auspitz - 3/2/2009

Question
my female cat aged 9 has started to pee and poo in the house at night. As far as I can tell ,she still goes to the toilet during the day outside. I am about to put a litter tray back for her. Does anyone have any ideas as to what I can do to stop this? Next door have a new puppy, not sure if this is anything to do with it.She is a very nervous cat. living with 3 dominant male cats. She is a black moggie, the others are Norwegian forest's and mainecoon. My husband is about to kill her as we have a new baby in the house, shortly about to start crawling!!! PLEASE HELP...

Answer
Dawn,

Have you had her checked by your vet to see if she has a urinary tract problem or the like?

As cats age, they do not hold their business like they could when younger, so by all means have a litter pan in the house.

Also, when you clean the areas in the house where she peed or poo'ed inappropriately, use an enzyme based cleaner specifically for per stains and pet odors (available at most pet supermarkets or farm stores).

When you set up her inside litter pan, use something like "Cat Attract" litter (available from most pet supermarkets) to begin with to help entice her to use the litter pan.  I also wonder if the 3 male cats she is living with will let her use the litter pan as cats can get very territorial about litter pans.

Meanwhile check out the series of article on litter box habits pointed to by this link:

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/pointe/9352/litterboxhelp.html


Finally, do not get concerned about toxoplasmosis in cats.  Either use latex gloves to scoop the pan or have someone else do it.  There is a lot of nonsense written about toxoplasmosis, cats, and pregnant women,  It is more likely your cat would get toxoplasmosis from you rather then the other way around.  According to veterinarian friends of mine, you either have to eat the cat raw or eat 3 day old cat feces to get toxoplasmosis from your cat!!!!!!  Furthermore, it is easy for your vet to test for and treat if it does show up in the cats.

Best regards... Norm.