Back in June of 2012 I wrote a blog post titled “Tub Pooper C.” It was only my eighth post and it talked about how Chris would poop in the bathtub if the litterbox was not perfectly clean. He went from pooping in the tub to pooping on the floor. It was a problem for years. He was four or five years old when he finally stopped doing that. I previously had litterboxes in separate rooms. When we moved to the place next to the marina, I combined two litterboxes in the same room. That solved the issue.

Now, years later, Chris is pooping on the floor again. It started a few weeks ago when Chris pooped under the dining room table while Rose was sitting at the table working. Since then, the number of times he pooped on the rug under the table or on the living room rug has increased until it was happening at least once a day, sometimes more.

I suspected that some of Chris’s age-related issues, such as arthritis and obesity, has made it difficult to use the litter box. Perhaps walking to the next room or climbing into the box has become too much. Of course, he can do it when he has to pee and he can also get up on a relatively high perch, but I still thought a lower litterbox closer to the dining room might help.

As an experiment, I picked up a disposable litterbox at the Grocery store on Friday and set it up under the dining room table.

As expected, our other cats used it, but Chris deposited his calling card on the rug a few feet from the box Saturday morning.

I ordered a large stainless-steel litterbox from Amazon that morning which is only four inches tall. It arrived Sunday. By then we had removed the rugs and washed them. We didn’t put them back because it seemed that Chris was targeting the rugs. I didn’t want to put the new box under the table, so I found room in a nearby bathroom.

It is now 2:00 p.m. on Monday and I have not seen a stray poop. I don’t know if Chris used the new box or if he didn’t poop because he only likes pooping on those rugs. Either way, I’m hopeful.