My cat keeps scratching at the walls of his litterbox. Why is he doing this?
Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at
5:56 am
I’m worried that my cat doesn’t like his litterbox or something and is going to start peeing/pooping all over my house. Is the scratching of the walls of the litterbox (from the inside) something I should be concerned with? We recently got a second cat and a second litterbox and I’m pretty sure they don’t use the same one. The old guy uses his and the new guys seems to use the new one.
Filed under: Cat Furniture
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I have 11 indoor cats and 8 large litter boxes ( uncovered storage containers ) and ALL of mine scratch the sides of the box after peeing / pooping. I THINK it’s to help get the litter off of their feet, but I’m not sure.
It doesn’t hurt anything, so I don’t worry about it. There are too many other concerns, to be "fixated" on something so trivial.
If he DOES start to pee/poop outside the box, THEN you can worry. Peeing outside usually signals a Urinary Tract Infection…….pooping outside usually signifies that the box isn’t clean enough to suit the cat ( odors confined or litter too poopy )!
Hope you can relax and enjoy your cat. Good luck.
my cat does it too. and its real annoying.
they like to cover it a way they would do this so their birth place would not be a give a way to others cats and kill the kittens they lear this from mother they all do it in garden
They are just wiping their feet
My cat does the same thing. It could be that the litter-box may be to small for the cat. He (or she) is just probably trying to cover it’s poop or pee and it thinks there isn’t enough litter in the box to cover it up, so it will scratch the walls to get more litter to cover it. My boyfriend and I have been talking about getting a bigger box for our cat.
1 of mine does it too , but in only one type of littrer it’s just annoying to us but to them its natural to really want to cover up.
You might want to try setting up 1 more box with a different type of litter to see if he prefers something softer or sandier or just plain clay litter. I have 4 cats 5 boxes and 3 types of litter.
My scratcher cart does it with arm & hammer clumping but not plain clay or the sandier type of clumping
There are several possibilities as to why he is scratching the walls. First, just understand that he’d doing it for a purpose…. to cover the litter. Then look at why he might feel the need to scratch the walls. Is there enough litter? He needs to be able to dig a hole deep enough in which to pee or poo but that doesn’t reach the bottom of the litter pan. He would then take the sides of the hole to cover the waste. If the litter around the hole is not deep or is dirty, he will look elsewhere for something to cover it.
Make sure there is enough litter and that the box is cleaned daily of the new waste.
If you are doing that, then you might look at whether or not his pee gets on the sides of the pan, leaving a scent in the box. He may be trying to cover a scent that is lingering.
To clean the box without replacing the clean litter, tip the pan to one end getting all the litter to the bottom/side. Disinfect the bare side and dry it with paper towels. Then tip it the other way and clean the other side.
A clean litter pan makes for a satisfied visit for the cat.
Good luck.
He is trying to cover his ‘leavings’ up, our cats would make a huge mountain out of the litterstuff it was funny, not literally of course.
Its either that or he wants to sharpen his claws unless he is declawed xDD