I have a weak stomach. I can take the sight and smell of blood, but other bodily effusions make me gag. I am not good around babies with spit-up and dirty diapers. Before I got Chloe, I worried about my ability to clean a litter box without getting sick. I managed by buying “clumping” litter, rushing into the bathroom, holding my nose and encasing the noxious clumps in a plastic bag which I tied tightly before throwing it in the trash can outside the house.
For the first month I had Chloe, she dutifully used the litter box. One day I came downstairs to find a fresh fecal deposit on the oriental rug in the dining room.
“Oh crap!” (And I meant that both literally and figuratively). As soon as I cleaned up and sprayed room freshener liberally, I rushed to computer to google litter box problems. I discovered there is a whole cottage industry devoted to the non-litter-box compliant cat. Ominously, there was a lot to read.
The articles encouraged me to see my vet to rule out physical causes, so Chloe and I made an appointment.
“There’s nothing physically wrong with your cat,” the vet said “Let me recommend the services of a veterinary behavior specialist. Fill out this detailed questionnaire, make an appointment with the specialist – here’s her card – and perhaps you can get to the root of Chloe’s problem.
My friend Jane had been a lifelong consumer of mental health services, so I knew a thing or two about psycho-therapy. I imagined Chloe reclining on a tiny couch, telling a feline psychologist about her relationship with her mother or her conflicts with Annie while I sat in the waiting room for fifty minutes, reading back issues of Cat Fancy magazine. I was wrong. The behavioral specialist put together a complicated regime for me. I had to bar Chloe’s passage to the dining room except when I was present. I cleaned litter boxes twice a day and experimented with litters of different scents and textures and boxes made from different materials, moving the boxes to alternative spots and logging a daily journal of Chloe’s bathroom activities. It was driving us all crazy. I hate keeping records and was forced to spend my free time logging Chloe’s every move while lugging litter boxes around the house. Chloe was suspicious of this person who followed her everywhere, notebook in one hand, litter scoop in the other. And Annie, jealous of all the attention Chloe was getting, started pooping outside her litter box as well, to get a piece of the action.
“I‘d rather live with crap on the carpet than become a fecal policeman,” I complained to a friend.
“This is kind of weird,” she responded, “but I know somebody who had a dog with issues. He found a pet psychic who was able to – you know- read the dog. The psychic told him exactly what the problem was and how to deal with it. He swears it changed the dog’s behavior entirely.
“That’s just crazy,” I scoffed.
“No crazier than a friend I know who paid a hundred dollars for her cat to see a kitty shrink,” my friend laughed. “A phone appointment with the psychic is only forty bucks.”
I held Chloe on my lap so the pet phone psychic could catch her “vibrations.” She told me Chloe had lived in the county and other information I couldn’t verify. Then I asked about the litter box issue. “Why won’t Chloe use the litter box and what can I do about that?”
There was a pause. “Chloe just doesn’t like using the box,” she said. “She likes the freedom of using the carpet, not to mention the paw feel of the soft carpet pile compared to the sandy feel of litter.” Another pause. “I’m not sure you can do much about it.”
This was clearly neither a physical complaint nor a psychological problem. This was a lifestyle choice. Chloe was a committed free-ranger, preferring to think outside the box. I refused to give in. I moved a litter box into the dining room, putting it on the carpet in the corner spot Chloe preferred for bathroom activities, not noticing that it was directly below a damp patch forming in the ceiling plaster. (I was soon to discover a leak in a radiator pipe in the ceiling). I combed reviews of kitty litter and found a “cat attractant” litter I purchased on line.
When I filled the box with cat attractant litter (a combination of litter and herbs), Chloe expressed interest. She sniffed the box, looked at it thoughtfully and sniffed some more. After careful consideration, she backed into the litter box gingerly. At that moment, a piece of plaster fell from the ceiling, smacking her on the head.
She jumped out of the box indignantly, completing her business on the dining room carpet as far away from the litter box as she could get. She refused to step into that corner of the dining room at all, and I can’t say I could blame her. I was pretty upset myself.
A few days later I discovered a crack in the litter box in the bathroom, the one Annie uses for all her bathroom activities and Chloe uses for urination only. The litter was leaking onto the floor. I went down to the dining room and got the unused box, cleaning it with bleach and water, putting it in the front yard so the sun could complete disinfection before filling it with fresh litter and placing it in the bathroom. Chloe entered the bathroom and stopped short. She looked at the box and then at me with alarm.
“What’s the matter, Chloe? The old box broke, so here’s a new one, nice and clean and tidy.” She stared at me and the box again. Clearly, her message wasn’t getting through. Deliberately, she looked first at me, then the box, the ceiling and the box again. I got the message. This was the litter box of death. If she used it, boulders would rain from the sky. No way was she using that box.
I went to the basement and got a spare litter box which I filled with fresh litter for the bathroom. I took the box of death and accompanied by Chloe, carried it downstairs and placed it ceremoniously in the trash can outside. When I reentered the house, Chloe looked relieved. Thanks to her quick thinking, she had saved us all from certain death. She sighed contentedly and crapped on the oriental rug.
No comments:
Post a Comment