For the consult, you will need to:

• Be sufficiently comfortable with technology to be able to use your email, Zoom, WeTransfer and the internet in general.
  • (Zoom requires you to at least have a microphone so you can speak to us and either a headset or speakers to hear us.)
• Fill out the pre-consult questionnaire.
  • And provide a hand-drawn plan of your residence and some photos and videos (defined in the questionnaire).

— Reminders —

*** Behavior consultants are NOT veterinary professionals. All medical conditions imperatively need to be swiftly directed to a veterinarian.**

***ANY SUDDEN BEHAVIOR CHANGE IN YOUR CAT CAN BE INDICATIVE OF A POTENTIALLY FATAL HEALTH PROBLEM IF NOT ADDRESSED QUICKLY. CALL YOUR VETERINARIAN NOW TO KNOW IF YOU NEED TO VISIT THEM RIGHT AWAY.**

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Why is my cat peeing outside the litter box?

Oh how annoying it can be to find a puddle of smelly yellow liquid where we don’t want it to be! In nature, cats can go to the toilet wherever they please, but in our houses, we prefer to dictate where they should go. This can cause some problems. When seeing your cat pee outside the litter box, there are many things to consider.

Why do we tell you to go see a veterinarian first?

There are many possible reasons why your cat urinates outside their litter box that are of the medical realm:

• They don’t realize it’s happening (infection, cognitive decline, etc.).
• They didn’t have time to get to the box (joint pain that makes them slower at getting up, illness inciting them to drink a lot and therefore have a very full bladder more quickly, etc.).
• Difficulty in accessing the litter box (undiagnosed injury, joint pain due to aging, etc.).
• Pain in their paws when they dig the litter substrate (pain due to declawing, etc.)
• Pain when they urinate, which they have associated with the litter box itself (infection, etc.).
• , etc.

*** These examples are mentioned here only to help you to understand why the medical aspect is important because there are a lot of possibilities. ***

If we don’t treat the medical issues, we won’t be able to change the behavior of our cat. And treating the medical aspect is really worth it because we have medications, treatments and diets available today that can help our cats through all the above-mentioned issues. We are far from the Middle Ages. (If medicating your cat seems an insurmountable mountain, I want you to know that it doesn’t have to be. This video gives you a starting point. For more support, book an appointment here.)

It’s therefore imperative to solve the medical causes before focusing on the behavioral aspect if we want to solve the problem.

Would I want to go to the toilet under those conditions?

Once the medical aspect is cleared, the most common mistake that people make is to think that litter boxes take care of themselves. If people didn’t keep their full chamber pot inside their home in the Middle Ages, there’s no reason for you to keep your cat’s pee and poop in their litter box for days on end.

A good litter box is a clean litter box.

You don’t like porta potty toilets any more than you like toilets with yellow and brown stains because the kids didn’t activate the toilet flush? Well, your cat doesn’t like it either when their toilet is full of clumps of urine and feces, especially since they need to push them aside when they need to go…

Sift the litter MINIMUM once a day. And make sure to have MINIMUM one litter box per cat (preferably one more than the number of cats in the home).

Still thinking along the lines of festival toilets, we like what’s COMFORTABLE, meaning:

• Safe
• Soft
• Well ventilated
• Accessible
• Spacious
• , etc.

It can be difficult to have a good representation of what that means for your cat. Behavior consultants are there to help you when you think you’ve solved everything, but the problem remains. There are dozens of nuances to consider!

Your veterinarian told you that you need to diminish the stress in your cat’s life ?

Whether it’s due to conflicts inside the home or to roaming cats outside, stress can cause events of urination outside the box.

Finding all the sources of stress and solving them is, however, harder to say than to do. It sometimes seems to us that our cat doesn’t live a stressful life and/or we don’t know where to start. In order to identify your cat’s stressors and learn how to manage these for them, you need to have an external competent eye: that’s exactly our expertise.

Don’t let things get worse. It would only make it harder for us to solve them. There are always ways to modify behavior, without threat or pain for the cat, but it will require a bit more effort on your part the more you let the problem evolve. Reach out for help now, on the medical side and THEN on the behavior side.

To book an appointment for the behavior side of things, click here.