feline behavior question

[cellio]

This is a new problem for me, but (I gather) old hat for some others. So, advice please?

Starting about a month ago, every couple days I have found a "deposit" (solid) on a particular section of carpet. (Usually this is in the morning.) When I say "section of carpet", I mean it's always within the same area of about two square feet. None of the cats seem to be having other litter-box issues and the placement is pretty consistent, so I'm guessing this is a behavior problem, not a continence problem. I haven't yet been able to determine which cat it is, but if we apply Occam's razor and assume it's just one, I can eliminate Erik based on the most recent incident, which happened tonight while he was with me.

In late November I had a visiting cat for about a week, and Baldur wasn't too happy about that. However, this problem began a month or so after that cat went home, so I don't know if that's related. (I found no evidence of marking/spraying while that cat was here.) There's been nothing else weird going on that I've noticed -- medical, dietary, behavioral.

I actually have two questions. One is about how to change this behavior, but the other is this: is there something I can and should do to that carpet to make it less of a target? If so, what? Or will doing that merely relocate the problem? Yeah, it's annoying, but at least I know where to look and it's not, say, on the couch. Placement could be worse.

Comments

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My experience has been that cats almost always start doing this because they are unhappy about something. They may continue doing it because it smells right, but a lot of times if you can figure out what is causing the initial unhappiness and solve it, the behavior will clear up on its own. The trick is figuring it out, because cats are weird emotionally and well, they can't tell you what they are angry or upset about.

So...I had a cat that started doing this exact thing - depositing solid waste on the floor about 2 feet in front of the litterbox. It took us a couple of months to figure out what her problem was. It turned out that the long hair on her back end combined with some arthritis was causing her to have to spend extra time in the litterbox when going #2. In addition, the other cat in the house was catching on to the fact that she was vulnerable during that time, and had started harrassing her. So she was going on the floor instead, probably because it didn't make litter rustling noise to alert the other cat that pooping was happening. This is our best guess, anyway... In any case, the behavior cleared up immediately once we had her shaved at the groomers.

Are you sure there isn't any intercat hostility that you aren't aware of? That's probably the #1 reason for litterbox issues out there, and cats can be extremely subtle when they engage in relational aggression with one another.

[cellio]

Are you sure there isn't any intercat hostility that you aren't aware of?

I suppose it's possible -- by definition I wouldn't have noticed. :-) These cats have lived together for 10+ years, though, so if it's that I wonder what prompted it.