Now take a look at the various base camp–caliber items you have already provided your cats: Where are the feeding stations right now? Where are the litterboxes? The scratching posts? A cat tree? The cat beds? Do you already have a Superhighway? Put it all on the map. This process will reveal in what direction the Catification scales are tipping. If you find that all of your “cat stuff” is clustered in one corner of the map, well, now is the time to spread the love, according to who tends to favor what and where these pieces might be better placed to encourage optimal ownership and traffic flow. In our perfectly Catified world, signposts, scent soakers, Sundial pieces, and Cat TV would be evenly dispersed throughout the territory.
Remember, Catification is ALL about creating a space that works equally well for human and cat. But the key word in that definition is “equally.” If we don’t actively encourage a Mojo-fied relationship to the territory, we are tacitly encouraging the opposite. The choice is clear: build with signposts, or prepare for graffiti.
A LIVING THING
As you continue to build and refer back to your Mojo Map, you will find that it is a living thing; it is fluid, as are the relationships that it documents. Preferences will no doubt shift as the year progresses. As the sun hits different spots and your Sundial changes—or maybe if you crank up the furnace or fireplace—your cat’s preferred spots will follow suit, since they tend to follow heat sources. This can affect how things are laid out as the year unfolds. And that’s where your map comes in handy—to stay one step ahead of the territory. The more you keep that sense of urban planning up to the minute, the more confidence is built and maintained and the less territorial competition will rear its ugly head.
“SIGNPOSTS AND SCENT SOAKERS” should be one of your Catification mantras when looking at the inner architecture of your shared territory. The obvious foundational components are beds, scratchers of all shapes and sizes, towers, food bowls, water fountains, and, yes, your old sweatshirts. There remains, however, the king of all signposts and the mother of all scent soakers: the litterbox.
That’s not exactly music to the human ear, I know. I really know. I think it’s a safe bet that there aren’t that many people who have seen firsthand the destruction that can come from a two-foot-square plastic box like I have. I’m not talking poop and pee, here; I’ve seen, time and again, how a litterbox can become a cause of conflict in the home, and all relationships—whether human-to-human, cat-to-human, and even human-to-house—can suffer for it. That’s why I’m going to do my best to cover all my bases when it comes to litterboxes. The more you know, the less you’ll blame yourself, your cat, your spouse, or that two-foot-square plastic box.
LITTERBOX 101 AND BEYOND
Do you believe in magic? If you’ve seen a cat use a litterbox—following her instinct to bury waste in soft, loose material, and doing so in a plastic box—then you should experience a moment of awe.
If your cat were outside, she would eliminate wherever she liked, and not necessarily in one predictable spot. When kitty litter was invented by Ed Lowe in 1947, it instantly revolutionized our relationship with cats in two ways: First, that relationship would deepen greatly because now our cats could spend infinitely more time in the house with us. Just as significant (and infinitely more complicated), that relationship became one based on expectations. In true human form, from that moment forward, we expected our cats to eliminate exclusively in . . . a box. After a long, long history of a laissez-faire arrangement, this sudden ultimatum happened in a blip in the timeline of our lives with cats. And again, in true human form, we weren’t exactly patient about changing the course of evolution. If you consider how recently we brought cats into our homes, sternly pointed at that box, and said, “Now do it in there!” it’s a damn miracle that they do it at all.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
If you ask me, or anybody else who does my job, we wouldn’t have jobs at all if it weren’t for pee and poop in places other than litterboxes. Nothing will motivate a prospective client to either call me or to rehome their cat faster than a serial “outside-the-box eliminator,” whether it’s on your couch, your carpet, your bed, or on you. So let’s start with some time-tested prescriptions for preventing serial peeing and pooping through proper litterbox Catification.
First, however, I’m going to have to say it: the litterbox (along with its quantity and placement) is the proverbial elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. I know there are clients of mine who have thought long and hard about whether they would rather have pee on their carpet or another litterbox in their house. This, at the end of the day, is your call. The litterbox also represents that core compromise I’ve spoken so much about. Once you realize how important it is for your cat’s overall sense of well-being, I hope it will push you toward the right side of that compromise. And there’s one more factor to keep in the back of your mind while you ponder that litter-box–shaped elephant: if you follow these guidelines now, they will, in almost all cases, help to prevent litterbox problems further down the line.
I’ve already discussed scent soakers and how important they are to a cat’s general sense of Mojo. These territorial signposts are like the things that define your life in your home. Keepsakes, souvenirs from the trips you’ve been on, photos that line the walls, the small design details you agonized over, and even the coatrack that is, at the moment, overflowing with coats, sweaters, hats, and purses—these are the things you walk by and you say, deep in your subconscious, “Yes, I belong here.” You breathe easier, knowing that this is your home.
With this in mind, ask yourself: if you were going to take a long trip, and you know you get homesick, what would you bring with you to signify home?
As someone who spends roughly a third of his year on the road—and who also gets homesick—I think that one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to travel with my bath towel. Sure, it’s great to travel with pictures of your wife and your animals and put them next to your hotel bed. But a towel is one of the ultimate human signposts, because when you get out of the shower in a strange hotel, you’re wrapping yourself in your scent, and the scent of your home. For you, your traveling signpost might be your slippers or a pillow. For cats, it would no doubt be their litterbox.
Think about it: for your cat, every room in your house could represent the strangeness of a hotel room or the intimacy of a bedroom. If you want to maximize Mojo, you will put litterboxes in socially significant areas. These are spaces that both the humans and the animals occupy equally. As humans, when we come home, we sit on the couch, and we go to bed, which makes those places major human scent soakers. This compels cats to spend time in these areas, complementing our scent with theirs, thus making your bedroom and living room the most socially significant spaces in the home. And yes—those are the rooms where you may need to place litterboxes.
I realize it might feel as if I just dropped a litterbox–shaped bomb on you. But this bomb could radically change the landscape of your home—in a mutually constructive way. This willingness to change the landscape of your home for your cat’s well-being is the very definition of Catification. The win for you in putting litterboxes front and center in these living areas, and not thinking for a second about your general aesthetic values, is that it will reduce or help to eliminate peeing that results from territorial insecurity (which is behind the majority of all problem peeing).
Still, if a vision of a house full of litterboxes is freaking you out, think about it as a grand experiment. Along the way, certain litterboxes will be used and others will be ignored. This will show you what your cats consider to be socially significant areas, and at that point, you can reduce the total number of boxes.
Cat Daddy Dictionary: Litterbox Resentment
I just suggested that you put litterboxes all over your house. But what I don’t want is for you to get to the point where the compromise is so painful that it starts to tear at the fabric of the rela
tionship between you and your cat. This is something I call Litterbox Resentment: You are walking through your house when you look down and see a litterbox. Then you start to resent your cat, just as you would if, on a particularly bad day, you slip on your child’s toys that are all over the floor and you find yourself starting to resent your child. Clearly, this calls for an intervention.
You have just come face-to-face with the fact that cats aren’t the only territorial animals in your home. We want them to be happy, but the thought of them pooping in our living room is unbearable. However, just as your children’s toys are integral to their development, the litterbox is critical for your cat’s Mojo. Just remember, there’s always a solution available. It’s being solution-oriented that takes you one step away from the ledge that is Litterbox Resentment.
CAT DADDY’S TEN LITTERBOX COMMANDMENTS
While the following are more tips than actual commandments, they have helped to resolve most litterbox issues I’ve encountered with clients over the past twenty years. So take heart: the laws of litterbox maintenance have the power to deliver you from the days of ruined carpets to a glorious paradise of kitty compliance.
Thou Shalt Have One Box Per Cat + 1
This formula may as well have appeared on stone tablets, just like the original commandments. Though not a commandment, the “Plus One Formula” is a guideline that I strongly recommend you consider. It states that there should be one litterbox for every cat in the house—plus one extra. If you have one cat, you’ll want two litterboxes; two cats, three litterboxes, and so forth. This formula is there to gently push you back into right-sized thinking. And speaking of that . . .
Thou Shalt Have Multiple, Well-Placed Stations
When I return to a client’s home after having given them the above formula as homework, I often come back to a home that still seems curiously devoid of litterboxes, at least at first glance. That’s when the client takes me to the garage, where four litterboxes are put side by side, creating not four litterboxes but one huge “litter station.” Welcome to the hidden resort of Litter Beach, tucked privately away from the hustle and bustle of the home. Nice try, box hater! Litterboxes define territory, and every box should serve its purpose as a signpost by being placed in a different location in the home. Think of it as having multiple doormats. You wouldn’t stack them all at your front door. You would have one for each door—front, back, and side—so they could serve their purpose as a sign of welcome to others, and a signpost for you.
Which brings us to: Location, location, location! You put the litterbox in the garage, the mudroom, or the laundry room because you don’t want to watch your cat poop and pee, and you don’t even want to be reminded that they do so in your house. Or you just don’t want to have a litterbox or three destroying the appearance of a beautifully designed home. In the meantime, you might be asking your cat to walk down two flights of stairs, through a cat flap, and across the cold garage floor to a small, covered box on the outskirts of his territory. It’s the equivalent of an outhouse—not convenient, not desirable, and if you had any choice, you’d find a way to avoid it. There are other significant drawbacks as well. In these types of locations, opening the garage door or starting the washing machine will startle your cat. The potential upshot of that scenario is that your cat might think that bad things happen when they go to the litterbox—so . . . he stops going to the litterbox.
So, I repeat: location, location, location!
There’s just no way around this, in my experience: the box should be located where it works best for your cat, not you. Think of it as the lesser of two evils. It’s either a litterbox where you don’t want it, or pee where you definitely don’t want it.
Thou Shalt Not Camouflage the King of Scent Soakers
Your cat has 200 million scent receptors (versus only 56 million in humans), which tells you just how important (and sensitive) that particular sense is to them. That’s why it’s so important to cater to what your cat is attracted to, and, likewise, what they are repelled by. This is why I recommend only unscented litter, with no deodorizers in the litter and no air fresheners right next to the box. In my experience, those strong, artificial fragrances, including scented litter, can drive your cat away. Think about this: if you were trying to keep cats away from objects like, say, a Christmas tree, I would tell you to use an aversive scent. Cats don’t really like citrus scents by and large, so I’d recommend zesting a lemon and putting it in something porous like a Ziploc bag with holes poked in it and tucking it right next to that Christmas tree. How, then, would an air freshener with similar properties placed right next to the litterbox not be aversive?
When it comes to scented litter or air fresheners, we are talking about the breakdown of the human/cat compromise. Same thing goes for other forms of camouflaging—that is, disguising your box as a potted plant, or using a robot litterbox, or toilet training your cat. These are things that are convenient for humans, but as you will see, rarely work for the cats. It’s a cat’s smell that makes the litterbox a scent soaker, and therefore incredibly important. From a human standpoint, as long as you’re maintaining a well-defined scooping routine, there should be no discernable cat smell to mask. We’ll get to that soon when I go over how to clean your cat’s litterboxes.
Thou Shalt Observe the Law of Litter Common Sense
Of course, litter texture is a matter of individual preference, but looking through our Raw Cat lens gives us proper perspective. If given the choice between eliminating on rocks or soil, the vast majority of outdoor cats would pick the latter. Indoor cats avoiding the given substrate in their litterboxes will tend to choose softer items like bath mats, bedding, and clothes. Many cats (including declawed cats and seniors) can be very sensitive to the jagged nature of some crystal or pellet litters, or even to the roughness of many clay litters.
As with our previous commandment, when keeping Raw Cat preferences in mind, litter common sense calls for the simplest choice. The fancier the substrate, the more that can go wrong.
Thou Shalt Not Mindlessly Fill the Box
I think overfilling the box is a common problem simply because we think that more of a good thing will just make it a better thing. Every cat is different, of course, and we have to find out what works for the individual, which is a lesson we learn simply by observation.
One thing to consider is that for an arthritic, older cat, a full box of litter can cause discomfort—especially when pooping—because the cat must “grip on” to the litter to gain stability. Likewise, overweight cats can sink in large amounts of litter.
Long-haired cats dislike the feel of litter against the hair on their upper legs, butt, and belly. Remember, those sensitive hair follicles mean that when they squat, and the hair on the back of their legs touches the litter, it can create a tickling sensation. (For some long-haired cats, it may even be enough of a distraction that they will seek out a smoother surface to pee on.)
In most cases, try starting with just an inch or two of litter and adjust from there. But the lesson here is that everything about litterboxes, down to the amount of litter in the box, needs to be a conscious choice on your part.
Thou Shalt Honor the Right Box
Does your cat spend plenty of time digging in the box? Or does he gingerly enter as if potential dangers lie within? Are you asking your cat to use a top entry box even when your cat is elderly or in some other way physically compromised? Or is your cat overweight and the box is barely big enough for a kitten? Remember, the box should be attractive and convenient—in other words, a friendly place that your cat won’t think twice about getting into.
Ideally, the length of the litterbox should be at least 1.5 times the body length of your cat. He should be able to turn around, do plenty of digging, and find a clean place to go without coming face-to-face with the wall of the box.
Also, gymnastics should not be required to get in and out of the box. Top
-sided litterboxes might seem like a great idea, and for an agile cat, they might not be that hard to get into. But even the most acrobatic cat wouldn’t choose the life of a jack-in-the-box when there’s a much easier alternative: just pee on the rug!
Kittens, seniors, and obese or disabled cats might have challenges getting into (or out of) a high-sided or top-loading litterbox. Puppy litterboxes are great for seniors or cats dealing with mobility-based pain or discomfort. You can also cut down the entryway or sides of a regular box to make it easier for cats to walk in, rather than over, to enter the box.
Thou Shalt Not Cover
I’m not a huge fan of hoods on boxes. The idea that a cat needs privacy when peeing or pooping is classic human projection; it’s what we want when we go to the bathroom, so you think it’s what your cat wants. Wrong. Cats who go outside often go out in the open. In front of a bush. In a driveway. In your garden. On the side of your house.
Some cats might be fine with a lid, but lids can lead to ambush zones and dead ends, especially in a home with dogs, kids, or other cats. Covers can get pretty nasty after repeated use and are hard to clean. Also, long-haired or larger cats can get a static shock from touching the sides of the hood as they enter or exit. In other words, the risk-to-reward ratio here is heavily weighted toward risk—so at the end of the day, why bother taking it?
Thou Shalt Not Use a Liner
You might think that liners make your life a bit more convenient, but in reality, many cats don’t like the texture of liners and can even get their claws stuck in them. Plus, liners get scratched and ripped and pool urine, resulting in a huge mess. That’s not more convenient. Just say no.
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