toilet troubles

Slinky has been behaving weirdly. She seems to need to go to the toilet, but instead of going to the litter box, she scrambles at toilet doors, and poos on our toilet floor instead. If she cannot get into the toilet she ends up streaking around the house in the night. Finally last night in a fit of stress I set up a makeshift toilet for her in our bathroom, using a plastic washbasin and some cat litter on a rubber mat, on the floor.

We recently made changes to our cat litter tray, using biodegradable cat litter that comes in bigger bits, unlike sand. The transition was made slowly, adding a little of the new litter everyday to the old one till the whole litter tray was finally cleared off of the old cat sand. They seemed to get accustomed to it, and our litter box area became much, much cleaner and more sanitary, as opposed to having a perpetually sandy floor.

We decided that we want to stick to this new form of cat litter. Bigger clumps, easier to sweep the floor. Slinky is not much of a mess toilet-wise, but Sayang and Scooter have the habit of kicking the sand out of the box and they don't kick off the grains of sand on their paws the way Slinky does when she exits the litter tray.

The brand we bought was Green Sign, and subsequently Trustie, which is pricier than sand, bought from Pet Lovers Centre. Our neighbourhood pet shop Angels might bring in a similar, large type of litter for us to try next.

I suspect it might be because Trustie's brand of biodegradable cat litter has carbon fillings to minimise odour, that Slinky has become reluctant to use it because it smells different.

We might consider getting a second litter tray, for our bedroom toilet (the original litter box area when Slinky first moved in). But it would have to be a covered litter box, and I will need to place rubber mats on the floor, as our bathroom floor is usually wet from the air-con piping. The logistical cost for the litter box will be $40 and the rubber mats will be about $8.

As I speak here Slinky has once again slunk to her personal toilet in our bathroom. I have not cleared out her poo yet from it, so that it has her smell that she will find familiar to use again. Unfortunately, she toppled over the makeshift litter box... and spilled EVERYTHING on the floor. Here goes cleaning in the middle of the night...