my cat is pooping all over my house

Question
Dear Tabbi,
Our family rescued a feral cat from a cat hoarder in our neighborhood. The cat was a kitten and approximately 6 weeks old. The cat required lots of immediate medical care and she rallied to become healthy and happy. We have had the cat spayed and front paws declawed. We love her so much, but have a very serious problem. This cat poops both inside and outside her litterbox. I have tried different litter, multiple boxes, cleaning out the boxes multiple times a day, etc. Initially, she pooped all over the basement carpet only. (As many as 11 a week, plus using her box for pooping too!) We spoke to our vet and a local cat rescue group and they recommended gating off the area where she pooped. This worked for about 8 days. Now, she is back to pooping outside and inside the box, but in the front hallway and dining room. She usually poops about two to three times outside the box per day and twice in the box. Additionally, I read previous comments you made about feral cats. They often bite while you are petting them (while purring), want to be near you, but chase you and bite you, etc. The declawing helped this a lot! I am beginning to wonder if this behavior is related to her being a feral cat? I am ready to give her to a rescue/no kill shelter. The local group told me that their chances of placing her in a home are pretty much zero because of her behavior problem. She can't be a farm cat because of her paws being declawed. I couldn't be more sad or disappointed. I love her, our family loves her, but this is so disgusting and is ruining our house!!! Please help!

Answer
I don't mean to sound blunt or abrupt but obviously you did not research about de-clawing cats before you had it done. If you had, you would never had had the cat de-clawed!

It can take months, or even years, for the cat to heal. The surgery consisted of cutting off the cat's 'fingers' to the knuckle so the claws wouldn't grow back. Think of having stumps for fingers and digging in the rough cat litter! There is a lot of emotional and physical pain related to de-clawing. A lot of times there are permanently exposed nerves that can't be seen that causes the cat pain when 'digging'.

I would start putting puppy pee pads next to the litterbox so he can use those and not have to dig in the litterbox which is painful for him (which is why he is avoiding it), and he can get a little rock of litter in his 'stump' which will cause more pain.

You can bring him to a vet for an exam to detect osteoarthritis, phantom pain, bone regrowths, or other problems that can occur days or years after the surgery. There may be something the vet can do to alleviate or reduce the pain. In addition using a very soft-textured clumping non-clay litter is recommended.

He deserves to be given lots of love, attention, and understanding after what he has been through. His physical and emotional problems may last his lifetime as a result of the de-clawing.

The vet is not going to tell you all of this because he will lose the money for the procedure and he is there for the money, not for goodwill. In some countries, unfortunately not the US, de-clawing is not legal.

Here some articles to read on declawing:
(copy and paste, or type, the whole link into your address bar)

http://www.declawing.com/
http://www.hdw-inc.com/declaw.htm
http://cats.about.com/cs/declawing/a/declawing.htm

Pooping outside the box often happens when a cat has painful bowel movements. The cat associates the pain with the litter box and becomes afraid to use it and goes elsewhere. You may want him checked for a medical issue causing his behavior.

There are a number of additional reasons for the cat's behavior. Since I cannot include all the information in this answer, I am including some links to good articles about improper elimination.  They have good information that you should find helpful.
(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 is helpful.

Tabbi