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[Anonymous]

I have a male cat (Cho) who is about 3 years old recently I’ve found that he has started to sleep in his LitterMaid, and it isnt always totally clean!  He sleeps durring the day on the couch like normal but now does this after we go to bed.  I have two other cats one is a new addition (Screamer) but she never leaves our bed at night so I dont think Cho is afraid of her.  The only other recent change is I have started to let Cho outside when he wants, he still is scared of the outdoors a litle so he doesnt go out much.  What could be wrong, could he have posibly fell in love with the feeling of dirt but to afraid to go out?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Cats are known to do strange things and misbehave when they have some emotional issues.  They’re just trying to tell you something is wrong.  The fact that the new kitty sleeps in the bed makes is really appear that the new cat has a high place of position in the family and would sure affect the way Cho feels.

I must agree with the former reply about cats needing to be indoors.  There are too many awful stories out there and with all the “new” diseases going around, it’s certainly not healthy for the cat or others you have in the household that don’t go out.

You might want to post this on the PETS section since Critters is more about wildlife, bugs, etc.   :)

I’m so glad to see you looking for answers rather than just “getting rid of” the cat.  He wouldn’t be acting this way if he didn’t love you so he’s only trying to tell you something is wrong.

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