We had this problem once before, and I posted about it then and got some advice that (we thought) solved the problem. Well, it turns out that the problem isn't solved. I've picked up a few more readers since that last post, so I'm posting again, hoping that we'll get some more ideas.


This is Anne Murray. No, this isn't the Canadian singer of the same name, this Anne Murray is our cat. I'll give you some information about the cat and the problem: We've had this cat for almost four years, and she's just over four years old. We got her from the ASPCA, and she was declawed when we got her. Right after we had some remodeling done this past spring, Anne Murray started doing her business on the floor beside the new wall instead of in her litter box. We thought that she was doing this because she didn't like the smell of the remodeling, or that she was protesting the fact that we'd had some glass doors walled up (she used to lay in front of those doors every day). We put her under house arrest in the basement, where she lived until we thought we had the problem solved.

The solution that seemed to work was to give her a second litterbox in the area where she'd been pooping and peeing on the floor. We cleaned the area extensively to get rid of the smell, and then we put that second litterbox in the room, and that seemed to solve the problem. When we let her out of the basement, she started using her new litterbox almost exclusively (ignoring the old one in the basement), and we thought the problem was solved.

A couple of weeks ago, she decided that she didn't want to use the new litterbox anymore. She started doing her business in a new place in the same room. She is back under house arrest now, living in the basement, because nothing we've tried gets her to poop in the litterbox again.

Here's a list of things we've tried, and things that have failed:

Nature's Miracle is a product that, supposedly, removes the smell of cat urine and cat feces, and causes a cat to lose interest in doing her business in a given area. Well, that's BS. The stuff didn't work at all for us. The smell didn't go away, and the cat continued to poop and pee in the same spot on the rug.

We moved her litterbox to that new area of contention in the living room, hoping that if she really wanted that area as her bathroom, at least she'd use the litterbox there. No dice. She continued to poop and pee on the floor, right beside the litterbox.

We've tried that aerosol spray "pet training aid" stuff, the stuff that you're supposed to be able to spray on the floor and it'll make the cat not want to do her business in the area. The cat's response is "FOOL! I fart in your general direction!"

We tried changing the brand of litter in her litterbox, and now that she's under house arrest in the basement, she has at least started peeing in the litterbox in the basement. However, she absolutely refuses to poop in the litterbox. She poops on the floor, beside the litterbox. We clean it up off the basement floor every day.

I'll tell you how I would solve this problem if it were up to me... Anne Murray would go back to the ASPCA for being a defective cat. However, whenever I mention this idea to Wendy, there is great wailing and crying and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. She doesn't want to get rid of the cat, and she's sure that sending her back to the ASPCA would be a death sentence.

She's probably right. I don't think there's a big demand for four year old cats that poop on the floor.

She couldn't be sent to a farm to live outdoors because she's declawed and has no way to defend herself.

Personally, I think that regular, prolonged, violent beatings would help. If beating the cat didn't get her to stop, then I'd just have someone start beating me so that cat poop would be the least of my problems.

We're at the end of our rope.

Help?