Expert: Becky - 12/28/2004

Question
I have a two year old cat who will not use a litter box.  He will urinate all around the litter box but not in it.  He will also have bowel movements on any paper left on the floor. All this has made my son mad at him which has created anomosity between them.  The cat will urinate on his clothes but not mine (I understand that behavior!).  I have two other cats, male and female.  All have been neutered/spayed.  I don't know what to do and am considering getting rid of him.  He is a very sweet cat and I don't really want to but I can't have him ruining carpets and clothes.

Answer
Colleen,

This is indeed a very bad habit.  I have a friend who went through the same thing, except his cat kept peeing in the hall.   He finally got desperate adn completely retrained his cat and it worked!!  But it took lots of patience and some effort.  First, he confined his cat in the bathroom with a litter box when he wasn't home.  When he got home,  he would let him out ... supervised ONLY!  If he started to pee in the hallway, he would scoop him up and put him in the box.   Never scold a cat because it does absolutley NO GOOD, in fact, it makes them worse.  (cats are very different in training than dogs).  Another thing he did was after cleaning the soiled areas very good with carpet shampoo made for cleaning urine ... he put put aluminum foil over those places.  Cats do not like it, and his cat would not step on it.   This was an excellent deterrent and eventually he retrained his cat to use the litter box, and he has ever since!!  If I were you, I would keep all clothes picked up,  and keep bedroom doors closed for awhile.   If you son is showing any agression towards the cat, it will HURT any progress , so ask him to try to be nice, although I can see where he would be aggravated about the cat peeing on his clothes.   Tell him to keep his bedroom door closed until the cat is doing better.  I really think if you try, you can retrain him just as my friend did.  

Good luck and God Bless,
Becky