Ragdoll pees and poops outside the box at night

by Tyneal
(Queensland)

I have a pure bred Ragdoll. She is now six years old. She was completely litter trained from a kitten, but ever since getting her as a kitten she won't use the litter box!

She pees everywhere but the litter box. This only happens at night.

During the day she will use the litter box. She also poos on the floor as well.

My house has baby gates everywhere to stop her from peeing, but I'm sick of it and am ready to part with my cat.

I have three litter boxes that get cleaned as soon as she uses it. She has a whole bathroom to herself that I have placed litter boxes in.

She as been checked for a UTI. I think it's just a behavior thing but I can't stop it. I'm well and truly over it and ready to try one last thing.

Can someone please help.

My thoughts: I'm sorry to hear your cat is not doing well. This has been going on a long time, so it may be harder to solve.

Keep in mind there are other medical problems besides a UTI that can cause a cat to not use the box. I'm going to assume that since she's been health checked, though, that extensive examinations have been done by your vet.

If she were my cat, I'd ask myself what is different about night time from day time. I'd also stay up all night with her and observe her behavior to see what happens. Here are a few things I'd think about:

1. Are there cats or other animals outside the house at night? She may be disturbed by them. If this is the problem, it won't go away until you make those cats or other animals (and their scent) go away.

2. Is she restricted from going into any rooms at night that she can access during the day? Many people shut their cats out of rooms at night, such as the bedroom, and this may create stress. Cats like to be able to patrol their territory freely.

If stress or anxiety is causing the problem, Feliway may help. First, though, I'd see if leaving the doors open changes anything.

3. Have you tried leaving the lights on, especially where her litter box is?

4. Have you tried adding an additional litter box in a different location? At least one of our readers solved their problem by adding another litter box.

5. Are you using covered litter boxes? Some cats don't like to be confined, and for whatever reason, this sometimes is a problem only at night.

If none of that seems to do the trick, then I would try confinement. If you read through enough of the other pages on this site on litter box problems, you'll eventually find one where we talk about isolation retraining.

Isolation is often the last ditch effort when nothing else works.

Confine her to a sunny room with toys, pet beds, food and water bowls, and a litter box. If necessary, you can scale down to a large cage for this. See what happens.

I hope that helps and please let us know how it works out.
-Kurt