My cat keeps pooping in the house and we dont know why.

Question
Dr. Haung,
I am worried about my cat because he keeps pooping in the house. This is unusual behavior for him. We have taken him to the Vet when his stool were very 'watery' and they diagnosed him with high bacteria levels in his stool so they put him on antibiotics. He did stop doing this for a while but then started it up about a month after his antibiotics were completed. They have all been hard sense, with the exception of maybe once or twice. I don't think he is doing this for attention because he is a very social cat and gets constant attention. Or could this be him trying to get our attention because he feels something is wrong with him? Can cats have fecal incontinence? Should we take him in to get blood work done? We are all out of ways to get him to stop doing this? We need help. So if you have any ideas of what this could be from please let me know. Thank you so much for your time.

Answer
Sincere apologies for the delay.

When cats are ill especially in regards to diarrhea they can learn an aversion to the litter box or a preference for a different texture, such as if he has found that he prefers carpet as a place to eliminate.

My recommendation would be to get a few different types of boxes and fill them with different types of litter.  In one you could also put a piece of carpet of that is what he is tending to use in the rest of the house.  It he was using clay litter try sand clumping litter.  The idea is that they may not have the negative link to him that his normal litter does.

Fecal incontinence without some sort of physical trauma would be very rare.  It is more likely intentional.  Blood work could be done to make sure that there is no significant infection remaining that should be treated, but as for the feces in the house I would first start with trying the litterbox variety.  Please feel free to write back with the results of the trial.

Again my apologies for the delay.