my cat all of a sudden wants to use the bath as his litter tray

[Dawn F]

the problem wasn't that he was over weight just really big and scary!

[Desley (booktigger)]

Gill, I think a 1yr old Maine Coon would be fat at 7kg, I thought they took longer than a year to get to their adult weight?

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

I dont think a 7kg Maine Coon is a fat cat, unless it was a kitten 

Maine Coons are very big cats and their adult weight will be over 7kgs I believe, Misa is a big cat and he weighs 6.5 kgs but has a bit of a jelly belly which we are working on 

Misa can just reach the top of the work top when he stands on his back legs and my brothers Maine Coone can put his paws on the top and he is quite small for a Maine Coone.

Maine coones and Norwegiian forest cats are the two biggest breeds.

Misa is a moggie, just in case you are wondering but he is enormous and i need a much bigger carrier to to put him in when he goes to the vets, cos I like cats to be able to sit up on a long journey and he cant cos he is too tall.

[Dawn F]

she did come across as really nice, the reason I went is because my two from the rspca were put into a pen together (unrelated and from different previous owners) by the rspca without introduction by the time they came to live with they hated each other.  rspca did say I could take one back but to be honest neither are that young or pretty and I know that they pts on a bit of a whim so I really wanted to solve the problem another way.  Vicky didn't think it would be that easy and it hasn't been we still have to keep a good eye on them and keep them separate at night and when we go out but they can now at least sit in the same room as each other without Amber hiding behind the sofa

[Yvie]

Dawn, I wish I could get her round my house to sort out 2 of mine who keep fighting.
 I've never heard of spitting in the eye of a viscious cat!!!
And poor girl with the fat cat. Keeping a cat should be a pleasure.

[Dawn F]

Yvie - she was really good, it was arranged by my vet (she is the behavourist who they refer to) and was a bit of pr for her new book called cat counseller but it was only £2 and she talked for about 2 hours and took loads of questions even some very strange ones including an elderly lady who spat in the eye of a particulary vicious cat which Vicky tried to discourage and a poor girl who had a 7kg maine coon who would not let her near him and she couldn't groom him, he was only a year old and had been to the vet three times to be dematted, poor girl was so scared of him!

[Yvie]

Dawn F - Vicky Hall's my idol!!! See my post re: Cat Detective.

[Michelle (furbabystar)]

My friends cat did that too !!

I was feeding her a few years ago while my friend was on holiday and she had told me that sophie used the bath as a toilet - i thought she was joking !!
But sure enough Sophie would pee and pooh right over the plug hole !!

[Dawn F]

I went to a talk by Vicky Hall (cat behaviourist) recently and she  recommended really fine grain litter for problems like this, she said that often the wood pellets hurt the feet as they get heavier she raved about waitrose fine grain clumping litter because it was similar to sand which is what wild cats would have used - she said it was the first thing she always did in cases of inappropriate soiling, she also said a check location, somewhere not too noisy or difficult to get too and the obvious one - make sure it is cleaned regularly!

[Yvie]

Some cats don't like the wood litter, it's a bit rough on their paws - try a finer grained one. Also, is the litter tray sited where he maybe feels uncomfortable using it? Or is it tricky to get to? Is it big enough? Lots of guesswork really!

[Sootyca]

My rescue cat did that, even though he had a perfectly good litter tray.  We presumed he had been taught to do this by his previous owner, but maybe not!  He even positioned himself over the plughole to wee...bless.  But it was annoying having to disinfect the bath daily.  At that point his litter tray was in the kitchen which was huge.  I had a brainwave to move the litter tray to the bathroom and he was then happy to use that.  Still had the odd time that he went in the bath, usually when he had had tummy troubles and his litter tray was full.

Hope you manage to get it sorted!

Karen

[tammy]

my Smudge used to do that...........took me ages to figure out that it was her way of saying she needed the litter tray cleaned, even though most of the time the tray seemed perfectly clean enough....

[tan160581]

Millys mum
ive been using the wood stuff for a month and his been fine with it so far

iainMcT
Great advice if not a little bit extreme lol, no thats another weird thing he will poo in the bath and then lie beside it

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[ccmacey]

Eww Iain you are crude

Maybe your little one is coming into season? I found that when 1 of my kittens had reached the time they would start peeing in strange places around the house. I hope you get it sorted soon, my nearly 4 year old still uses the bath as a loo and its not very pleasent. I say why cant you use the toilet you lazy begger, its only a metre away. lol.

[IainMcT]

Naughty cat. Bob is a cool name for a cat though. I've got two suggestions. The obvious chinese burns being one of course. The other is to fit a new bath somewhere else for you and let Bob have the existing bath to himself. I assume he poos at one end and sleeps at the other? Have you tried pooing in the bath? That might put him off. Basically ignore my advice. If I knew what I was talking about not so little Sid wouldn't have savaged my foot at 5.30am this morning.

[Millys Mum]

In your other post you say you were using clumping litter and then changed to wood. This may have upset him.

[tan160581]

bob is 7 months old and all of a sudden he wants to sleep and do his litter in my bath( this started last week) i cant understand why, no litter or home change
can any1 think of a reason he would do this, and any tips on stopping him

Thanks
Tania