Hi Michelle–
I have seen cats sleep in litter before; it seemed to be a sign of stress. While that doesn’t necessarily hold true for Cho, he may be showing an odd behavior to tell you something’s on his mind.
What I mainly wanted to say is, please make Cho a strictly-indoors cat. Practically all veterinarians now recommend that house cats should not go outside at all. It shortens their life span for a number of reasons–cars, disease, dogs, god forbid bad kids and bad adults. Nowadays, with the great scoopable litters, it’s really no trouble to deal with the pans, as long as you have enough pans for everyone–especially true when you have newbies, always a stress factor. How would you like it if some strangers moved in suddenly without asking you, and you had to share your bathroom with them? (My rule is one pan for each cat plus one for the house, sort of like making tea!)
I feel very strongly about the indoor cat issue, especially today. I heard from my sister in N.C. yesterday that one of her cats had been killed by dogs–neighborhood dogs, ordinarily well-behaved, who were stressed out because their owners were moving and went all pack-mentality and killed Cisco. Cisco was only eight; my sister had rescued him from a Miami Metrorail station. Even worse, my other sister’s cat, Scout, was killed in the same neighborhood by a different pack of dogs a couple of years ago. Also my niece lost a cat the same way. Incidentally, with reference to the litter-sleeping behavior, Scout had been behaving strangely for a couple weeks before he was killed, knocking things off tables, which he never used to do. My sister figured later that he might have been stressed over his territory being invaded by the dogs and exhibiting weird behavior because of that.
So please, for Cho’s sake, make him a permanently indoors cat. Yes, they love it outside, but they love it inside, too, because YOU’RE the top cat and they want to be with you. My best to you and Cho.
G.S.