I have a wonderful six year old cat named Carrot. Here is Carrot. She is awesome:
Unfortunately, I'm now living in Comox at the base, and my GF will not be joining me until June 2011. She is down in Victoria at our house with the cat, and two dogs.
Recently, the cat has taken to occasionally peeing in the laundry basket, or in the bathtub. We keep her litter box quite clean (daily scooping), but for some reason she's decided that sometimes she doesn't want to use the litter box. She's on a dry food diet, and has been since I got her, and I have recently heard about how dry cat food can cause crystals to build up in their kidneys, making it painful when they pee. This in turn makes them associate their litter box with pain, so they go to pee elsewhere. Apparently wet food keeps this from happening?
At the same time, we got our malamute a year and a half ago, plus I left home in Sept (I go back on weekends). This may have caused some stress to the cat as well, although she's always been fine with me going away in the summer before (leaving her with a roommate). She tolerates Freyja (the big dog), but I wouldn't say they get along, although Carrot sleeps in our bed and the dog has her crate at night, so she does have a fair bit of time without getting chased around having her ass sniffed. So maybe it's stress related?
Anyone else have a cat that's been through this? Solutions, other than feeding her to the big dog?
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