My Pet World: Helping a cat understand both uses for a litter box

Q: I saw your article regarding cats not urinating in the litter box. My 13-year-old female cat has gradually stopped using the litter box to poop. I have three litter boxes that are kept in the garage that I clean out daily. She poops on the garage floor. This has been going on for two years. Initially, she used the floor once or twice a week, now it is five to six times a week. She does use the litter box to urinate. I have tried moving the litter boxes around, separating one box from the others, moving a litter box into the house, using different types of litter, but none of this has stopped her from using the garage floor. The vet has examined her for internal problems that could cause this and found no issues. Do you have any other suggestions that I might try to get her to go back to using the litter box? -- Portia Faulkner, Chicago, IL

A: Well if you had to be blessed with a cat with issues, be glad the issue is just pooping on the garage floor rather than peeing on your bed. At any rate, here is my suggestion for you.

Since she seems to go in only one spot in the garage, then take a large litter box that has low sides and cut the bottom out of it so that all you have is a plastic frame. Then when she poops again do not pick it up, just put the frame over the poop so that is now around that spot.

The idea here is to attract her right back to the same spot and hopefully the next time she has to go she will just step over the plastic frame and poop on the floor that is surrounds. Then for two weeks or so just let her go in the middle of the frame right on the floor and clean it up every day. After she is comfortable with that you can try to just sprinkle a very small amount of cat litter on the garage floor inside the frame.

Hopefully this will not dissuade her from pooping inside the frame and if it does not then you can gradually add more litter until she is going right on top of the litter. Then after some time, you can put a whole litter box with the plastic floor right on the spot where the frame was. If all goes well you can gradually -- I repeat -- gradually move the box to a spot more convenient for you. The only way to trick an animal into making your idea, its idea, is to do it gradually.

If this does not work, then you just have to wave the white flag of defeat and pick up the poop off your garage floor every day. It is still better than a cat that uses your bed as a litter box.

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Q: My friend has a pitbull, an American bulldog mix. Recently her sister threw a ball into her an above ground pool. It landed near the deep end. The dog jumped in and immediately sank to the bottom and had to be rescued. I always thought that dogs had an inborn instinct to paddle. Please comment on this. -- Emma Rohn, Sound Beach, N.Y.

A: Well the instinct is there but practice makes perfect. There is more to swimming than just instinct and some breeds of dogs are less buoyant than others.

A dog that is not a natural swimmer that suddenly finds itself in deep water most likely would panic from the shock and strangeness of the situation. That would counteract any natural ability to swim that the dog has.

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(Marc Morrone has kept almost every kind of animal as a pet for the last half-century and he is happy to share his knowledge with others. Although he cannot answer every question, he will publish many of those that have a general interest. You can contact him at petxperts2@aol.com; please include your name, city and state.)