Expert: Norman Auspitz - 3/28/2010

Question
I have 2 cats, one of which has started a very unpleasant habit. He is a 2 1/2 year old neutered male who we have had since birth. He has had a super stable environment and has been, up till now, a pretty good cat. We keep him out of our bedroom at night because he likes to drink out of our water glasses next to the bed (and they have spilled on us which is a shock in the middle of the night) He also will climb on our headboard shelf and knock things onto us while we are sleeping. So we've been keeping him out of our room at night which was difficult at first because normally he follows me around EVERYWHERE. So after the meowing at the closed door stopped he started pawing at the door for hours it seemed at times. Now in the last two weeks he has pooped right outside our bedroom door on 4 separate occasion! It is always after a long night of pawing. He uses the litter box faithfully every other time he has to go so how do I fix this? I don't know if it's separation anxiety or what but I don't know how to fix it. The litter box is always clean and like I said he uses it ALL the rest of the time. So how do we stop the little unpleasant surprises outside our door??? HELP!!!

Answer
Jessica,

It sounds as if your cat is using untoward bathroom habits to try to manipulate you (much like human toddlers do to their parents).  One thing you might try is to put aluminum foil taped outside your door.  Cats usually hate this and will tend not to pee or poop on aluminum foil. Then you have to hope the bad habit does not move somewhere else. You can also try a Feliway diffuser (available from most pet supermarkets) right outside your bedroom door

Another option is to try to cat proof your headboard and move the water glasses, so he can still stay in your bedroom but not cause any problems.

You also need to clean the area where he messed with an enzyme based cleaner specifically for pet stains and pet odors (available from most pet supermarkets or farm stores).

Please let me know what, if anything actually works.

Best regards... Norm.