Cat help needed

[LoveIsGentle]

We have two indoor cats. They've never loved each other but normally tolerate each other just fine. Then, about a week ago, one of them surprised the other while she was in the litter box and they got into this giant fight completely out of the blue. Ever since then, the cat that was surprised by the other is TERRIFIED of the litter box. If I try to bring her to it, she starts growling and scratches her way out of my arms to go hide. She's using our house as her own litter box now. I've tried shutting the other cat in a different room and encouraging her, I've tried moving the litter box, I put a brand new litter box in a different location...nothing is working and I want to cry at how many things I've had to toss and the number of spots on the carpet and mattresses I'm still working at getting the smell out of.

[sweetpeasmommy]

Maybe contain her to one room for a while with the new box, making sure it is clean and the other cat hasn't used it. If you use a covered box, take the top off as we've had issues with our cat hating older cat being cornered in those.

There are pheromone sprays and diffusers that are supposed to reduce stress related behaviors and make them feel safe. https://www.amazon.com/Ceva-Feliway-.../dp/B000WHUOEI The only real experience I have with those is that the vet sprayed down the pet carrier for our stressed out cat and said it's supposed to help. He didn't hyperventilate as much on the drive home.

You will want to use an enzyme spray to clean any areas that have been soiled so that no odor is picked up by the cat causing repeat incidents. The Out brand at Walmart seems to work well.

[domesticzookeeper]

We dealt with this a few months ago

What worked for us:

- Enzyme cleaning all affected areas. In the worst spots on the carpet, I actually taped off the boundary with painters tape, soaked the carpet, draped the carpet with tin foil (so that the cat would not be remotely tempted to re-offend), and let the magically magic enzymes do their work Left it there for no less than a week before removing the tin foil and allowing the remaining liquid to evaporate.

Note: we live in a relatively dry climate and I was comfortable leaving the carpet to soak because I knew it would evaporate fairly quickly. YMMV.

- New litter box in a new location. Got rid of the old one completely. We also have a back-up litter box on the second floor of our place, which rarely gets used, but is there if they need it

- Filled the new box with Cat Attract Litter.

- Plugged in Feliway Multicat diffuser(s). There are a couple formulations of the diffuser - I think Multicat worked much better in this situation - but that was just to keep the peace AFTER the litter box issues had been resolved. The diffuser won't fix bad associations or pee smells

---------- Post added at 06:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:59 AM ----------

Also, possibly relevant to your situation, but cats experience something known as redirected aggression: "Redirected aggression is one of the most common forms of aggression among cats living in the same household and can be a challenging problem to resolve. Redirected aggression is when one cat experiences something that instills fear, is over-stimulating or highly arousing and they redirect their frustration, aggression or fear onto whoever is closest." https://iaabc.org/cat/redirected-aggression-in-cats

With our cats this has - without exception - been caused by seeing another cat outside the house. One of my girls saw a neighbor's cat, whirled around, and attacked the other cat near the nearby litter box. That's where all of our issues stemmed from (complicated by the fact that we knew the neighbor's cat had been roaming around, but didn't understand the extent of the issue until we found the pee stains )

So, in addition to all of the above, we had to remove the source of the aggression because it would only keep escalating within our home. That kind of ongoing stress can lead to greater violence between the cats, increased behavior problems, and possible redirection toward people. We can't reasonably repel all cats in our crowded neighborhood, but we keep the blinds closed on windows that face the neighbors and we bought a motion-activated sprinkler for the backyard so that we can keep those blinds open and know that another cat can't be in the yard.

It could be a one-off thing in your case, but it's worth considering if there's an identifiable stress point

[LoveIsGentle]

Originally Posted by domesticzookeeper

With our cats this has - without exception - been caused by seeing another cat outside the house. One of my girls saw a neighbor's cat, whirled around, and attacked the other cat near the nearby litter box. That's where all of our issues stemmed from (complicated by the fact that we knew the neighbor's cat had been roaming around, but didn't understand the extent of the issue until we found the pee stains )

I think this might have been EXACTLY what set them off. The same day this happened, we brought a stray cat in with a hurt foot and kept him shut up in our other bathroom for a couple days until it had healed. The cats were never bothered seeing the cat around outdoors, but they got a good look at him inside the bathroom and instantly got in a fight. It was just a few hours after that that the litter box fight happened and it's been ugly ever since.

I do have the enzyme cleaner, and thankfully the worst of the smell seems to be out from my boys' bedroom, but she moved on to our living room.

I've gotten a few recommendations for those diffusers. I had never even heard of them until last night. I'm going to check into those, and that cat litter.

Thanks!