litterbox problems

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Theresa6

Member Since 2011
What do I do? My cat is flooding the box almost every time. I clean daily, but its still not enough. Every time she goes in, I hear the shaking and flinging of wet littler and when she comes out her paws are covered in litter and so is the wall in front of the litter box.

I have been scrubbing her paws every night for months and I am really getting sick of it :( I find litter in my bed, in my kids beds, and my baby is crawling in litter. What can I do?
 
The only real solution to the flooding of the litter box is to get both her hyper-t and diabetes under control. The best way to get her diabetes under control it to test her at home, feed her a low carb/high protein canned diet and adjust her insulin based on the numbers you are seeing through home testing.

Both hyper-t and diabetes is what is causing her to flood the litter box, with her diabetes still unregulated she is spilling sugar into her urine which just like adding sugar to water makes it sticky, which is why it is caking on her paws.

Sorry there isn't a better answer, but until those two conditions are controlled she will continue to flood the litter box.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
Could you put out another litter box for now? That way it wouldn't all be in one box - still alot of scooping but maybe it would help with how wet one box gets???
 
i scoop jose's box after every use. that way she is not standing in her urine when she initially climbs in. also, jose' always exits the same direction, so i make sure the box is positioned so she doesn't have to back out and walk in her urine. she pees & then moves forward away from the urine.
 
I have each litterbox set inside half of a large plastic dog kennel to confine the flinging and shoot over the edges stuff.

For now (temporarily), you may want to go with the plain clay litter, rather than the clumping, so it doesn't cake on her or the pan nearly so much. The liuid will drain down towards the bottom more readily. You could even add some of the crystal litter to help it settle to the bottom.

Use a trowel or small sandbox shovel to remove the wet clay, rather than the mesh/grated clumping litter scoops.
 
The breeze litter system is similar to the smart cat.box;.urine.drains into a pad in a.tray. You have to.change the pad more often than once a week.for high output but it makes it easier to control the urine volume. I've seen it at some walmarts, as well as petsmart. If you go to the website there should be a.coupon. http://www.breezeforcats.com we love ours.
 
Huh...I've never noticed those kind of boxes before. That looks really cool. I have to males and one female...it seems like male urine has more ammonia than females...stinky. I might have to try one of those pad type boxes...

I was going to suggest a very deep litter box to prevent the litter from getting everywhere.
 
so frustrated... I feel like I have come to a breaking point with the litter issue. I truly cannot scoop more than once per day and it is clearly not enough. I have a very small home and three human children. The baby is 10 months old and into everything... she does not nap and the only time I can clean the box is when she is sleeping. Stella (our cat) gets litter stuck/caked onto her paws every time she goes to the box, and it ends up all over the house. My baby is crawling in it, and my older two are sleeping in it (as are we). I can't take it anymore! The meds I can live with, insulin shots even home monitoring but I can't handle the litter everywhere. part of me is thinking of keeping her confined to the garage until her blood sugar is regulated, but I feel guilty because its cold and she is used to being around people. I just don't know what to do anymore :sad:
 
Ittends to disintegrate into shreds. Less likely to stick - vets often have you use it after declaws.
 
BJM said:
It tends to disintegrate into shreds. Less likely to stick - vets often have you use it after declaws.
Click to expand...

Man... people still opt to declaw when there are so many better options... :sad: Yesterdays News is a good litter, it crumbles when it gets wet and shouldn't cake on her paws... but it does still track. I use it in the litter box for my rats because it's low dust and fairly absorbant. It's actually pretty hard, I can't imagine it being comfy for a declawed kitty to stand on. But I digress.

I'm certainly not too experienced in this whole fiasco, but my Scooter was doing the same thing when I got him, and it was the hardest part about this all. I was breaking my back cleaning the litter box 4 times a day, scraping caked clay off the sides and the floor... it REEKED and my landlord complained nonstop... but the closer he gets to being regulated, the better it's getting. I used to throw away a whole grocery bag full of waste a day. Now it takes 3-4 days worth of waste to fill one... and he's only been on insulin for 4 days. He went from drinking 3 bowls of water a day to not even a whole bowl. I think the diet change from dry to canned is what really did the trick for him. Cleaning the litter box was honestly more of a chore than home testing and shooting insulin is!!!

Hopefully you can find a solution that doesn't upset her tummy and get this under control :smile: Just thought I'd share my experience.
 
A paper-based litter like Yesterdays' News might work. You could also use paper-based small animal bedding like Carefresh. Some people here use wood stove pellets that they buy from the hardware store. I think that wouldn't stick to paws.
 
I wanted to post a quick update. I ended up dumping the clumping litter and trying some of the wood stove pellets since they come in such huge bags and are inexpensive. Thankfully Stella didn't mind them and so far we don't have issues with them sticking to her feet. I do still change the box every night and the actual cleaning is a bit more difficult because the pellets fall apart and disolve so you end up replacing almost the entire box worth of litter daily, but really not having litter clumps in our beds is worth it!
 
Glad its providing a cleaner environment for you!

We recently switched to Dr Elsey's Precious Cat scoopable and it clumps better and is much better with the stickiness. I also switched to deeper and bigger boxes so that they have to jump out versus walk out (or run as Taz does) and they also aren't walking on any previous pees, though the better clumping makes that not a real issue anymore. They don't track much litter out at all now.
 
Melanie and Smokey said:
I also switched to deeper and bigger boxes so that they have to jump out versus walk out
Click to expand...

Hi Melanie,

I am a huge fan of Dr. Elsey's clumping litter but I want to caution you about asking your cats to jump out of the litter box.

We are recognizing more arthritis in the back and leg joints of our older cats and I would not want my cats to have to jump off of a surface that gives way like litter. Think about playing beach volleyball and having to jump up off of sand. It can be very hard on the joints.

With an older cat...this can lead to a litter box aversion.

This is one reason why I loathe that awful Clever Cat Box that makes the cats jump in and out of a small hole in the top of the box.
 
What I did was put the litter box inside a gigantic Rubbermaid bin - so he had to climb out of one box, then another. Sure, some litter got into the Rubbermaid, but it was better than him tracking damp litter on the carpet. It also kept the urine confined to the two boxes. I kept the whole contraption in the laundry room. I was lucky to have a lot of space for this.
 
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