dragging litter box contents out on paws

Question
Hi Norman,
I'm at a loss for what to do and hope you can help. I have 2 Maine Coone (also part Siamese I believe) large male cats (about 15lbs) that were rescued from a wild cat colony as kittens. Both were litter trained when I got them, but one of them seems to be obsessed with covering up his poop in the litter box. He is a very nervous skittish cat as well, so I don't know if that is why he does this.

I have the biggest covered litter box I can find anywhere, but he circles around numerous times after he goes trying to cover it up. Sometimes he will go out, look in and go back in to try to cover it some more. The problem is, it almost always gets stuck to his paws and he then comes out of the litter box and wipes his paws on the hardwood floor, his bed, etc to clean it off. There is a litter mat outside of the door of the box, but he usually steps right over it and uses the floor.

I thought maybe his stools were too soft, but he is now on special vet food and it is quite firm. I also thought it could be that the hair in his paws is too long, but I have trimmed it and it still doesn't help. His brother doesn't bother covering his stools at all so I don't have any problem with him (they share the litter box).

I have a baby on the way in less than two months and the thought of the baby crawling on the floor with the cat doing this is really an awful thought. My husband wants to get rid of him for this reason, but I just can't bear to do that. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

Best Regards,

Autumn

Answer
Autumn,

I am going to pass on to you a URL pointing to an excellent article on Housesoiling problems in cats:

http://www.netcat.org/housesoiling.html

Some cats are very persnickety about their litter pans!!!!!  One possibility is to provide a second litter pan set up in case the cat with the problem is objecting to the other cat's poop in the litter pan?????  It may be he is covering both his and his brother's poop!!!!!

Another thing I would do is to keep newspaper under the litter pans so you can provide something for your cat to be able to wipe his paws off.  Have you tried different types of litter?  Do you have enough litter in the pan?

It is very difficult to try to "correct" this type of litter covering habit.  You might just have to keep an eye on him and when he uses the litter box, scoop the hard stuff out immediately.

Good luck & best regards... Norm.