cat pooping all over garage

Question
Hi Tabbi,

We have a 1 year old female cat (not spayed yet) who lives in our garage.  We live in the country and need cats to control mice, but our oldest son has health problems and is allergic, so they live in our garage with a nice warm bed and a litter box.  Currently we only have one cat and my husband discovered that she has been pooping and peeing all over in the back of the shelves and on top of plastic storage boxes.  She hasn't used her litter box in quite a while, and we could smell that she had gone somewhere so cleaned out the garage.  We have a dog that also occupies the garage, but the cat's litter box and food are both up high where the dog can't disturb them.  Our son who loves cats wasn't as diligent as he should be cleaning the litter box, so that might be the problem, but my main question is this:  How can we get her to stop using the entire garage as a potty?  My husband is wanting to get rid of her if we can't get her to stop.  We can't get rid of the dog or separate them really, they both sleep in the garage.  


Thanks,

Stacey

Answer
Stacey,

Spaying her will cure a lot of behavior problems. She may be in heat and is being stressed by it because she can't get outside, or by tomcats sniffing around the garage. She may also have a urinary tract infection. They are common and also painful. The cat will associate that pain with the litterbox and go elsewhere.

A litterbox needs to be cleaned at least one a day. Using a clumping litter like Fresh Step or Tidy cat makes the job easy.

Since I cannot put all the information in this reply, I am including some links to good articles about improper elimination. Please read them. They will have good information that you should find helpful in dealing with the cat's behavior.
(copy and paste or type the whole links into your address bar)

http://cats.about.com/cs/behavioralissues/a/outsidebox_two.htm

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/pointe/9352/litterboxhelp.html

http://www.apbc.org.uk/article10.htm

I hope this helps.

Tabbi