So Many Factors

Millie wet on the floor next to one of her litter-boxes yesterday. I don’t know the cause. Since she has gone days without wetting where she shouldn’t, there is likely no physical cause (she will go to the veterinary soon, but previous visits for the same reason revealed nothing amiss). She knows how to use a box and what it is for. Cats who do this obviously have a hidden reason of their own. However, I am not downhearted at this event. I will watch for patterns, locations and times, and see what she is up to in her unfortunate periodic behaviour.

There is reason for optimism. She now has two litter-boxes: one with clay Cat-attract litter and one with corn-based organic litter. (The third, with no litter but with a soaker-pad, has been removed.) While sweeping the floor of the library - Millie makes less mess than any of my others; the term ‘spray’ in their cases refers to how they throw about the litter - I closed and latched the lid of the box with the corn-litter for the convenience of moving it - I had kept the hood pushed back in case Millie preferred that. I left the room for no more than a minute. When I had returned, she had wet inside the hooded box. I decided to leave it like that. This morning, in addition to using the clay litter, she also, once again, wet in the hooded box.

I will continue to see how and when she uses the covered box. It may be a matter not of litter but of receptacle. There are so many factors that could determine whether a cat does or doesn’t wet inappropriately that it’s like devising a mathematical formula for a scientific process: each action, each addition or subtraction of an item, each placement, could influence behaviour. Perhaps I will never arrive at the correct answer. Perhaps the successful formula is just a litter-box away.