mixed question Adoption & Re-House Training a very old cat

Question
My ex wife of 8 years is getting ready to move in with her boyfriend, about time.  However, he doesn't want her cats at his house.  If so they are to be outdoor only, which they aren't used to.  Her cats are 10 (male neutered) & 19 (female spayed).  I already have two neutered males, 6 & 5 years old, father & son. Rather than her taking her cats to the pound or keeping them exclusively outside our children think I should adopt the cats.  I/we have known them all their lives.

Here's the problem, the 19 year old had gotten into the habit of defecating & urinating where ever she feels like and for the most part ruined ALL of the carpeting in my ex's house.  She's been doing this for the better part of all the time since the divorce 8 years ago and she had learned this behavior from another cat we had that passed on last year. We have proven it's the female not the male.  

Now her cats & my cats already know each other, to a degree, as we live 4 doors apart so I don't expect there to be much kitty social conflict. Though, the 19 year old's litter training, or lack there of has me seriously concerned as to her suitability of adoption and I know often times once one starts this practice others will follow in order to mark territory.

Thus far with my cats we've had zero litter problems due to how we trained them since they were kittens.  Can the elderly cat be retrained?  If so, the only option I would have is to use a large cage in our basement, which is where the litter boxes are as rooms that can be closed off aren't really an option due to the design of the house.  

There's also the issue of them trying to return "home" but there's a busy street they must cross to get there.  Undoubtedly, I'd expect them to not last 6 months before they met their demise to a car or truck.

Please offer your thoughts on these issues.  I have not adopted them yet.  I also don't check this site very often so a direct reply to my email would be appreciated.

thanks,
Jay

Answer
Hello Jay,

Surprisingly this is the third question today that is almost identical so I hope you don't mind if I paste my answer instead of retyping the whole thing.  :)  Instead of the bathroom deffenitly use the cage, it sounds like it is big and quite roomy?  You don't want to be leaving her in a tiny space for this amount of time.

Having these cats go outdoors is deffenitly not a good idea.  Especially if they are not outdoor cats now they certainly wouldn't last very long!  Your estimate of 6 months is a good one.

I would also bring the 19yr old in for a thorough check up.   Chances are that since this has been going on for a long time that it is not medical related but at her age it
s a very good idea to rule it out.

Good luck!  You will find my previous response below, it is drastic but with a cat such as this that has been going outside the box for so long, very necessary.

Natoma

I can tell you are beyond frustrated and I assure you I am not here volunteering my time, of which I don't have very much of it free thus the often very late replies, to hand out stock answers.  I will start by saying I have honestly never experienced a problem as severe as this with my own cats but I am more than willing to do my best to help you out.

First, and this will suck for both you and the poop cat, but she needs to go back to litter training 101.  It's going to require about 6 litterboxes, a commitment and a lot of patience but it sounds like you're willing to try anything!  While cats are smart and can use bad litterbox habbits to make a point, I don't think that's what is going on here as it's gone on far too long for that.  It's possible this is how it started out but now she has just gotten to a point that it's habbit to go wherever she feels like it, unusual for the normally clean cat but absolutely not unheard of!  

You have allready answered most of my usual questions for this type of problem but I have a few more.  What kind of litterbox and litter do you use?  How many litterboxes do you have and where are they situated?  How have you been cleaning the area's that she has defecated?

This may seem drastic but she needs to be kept in your bathroom for now until we can get her using the box regularly.  With of course her litterbox and water dish, free feeding is out for now so that you will have an idea of when she is going to go.  You will learn her digestive system better than she knows it ;)  By doing this you are creating a smaller living area for her and by using her natural instinct not to poo where she sleeps she will be forced to use the litter box.  You need to buy Cat Attract litter, it is generally for use with problem pee'ers but does work for poo too.  She needs to be fed once a day only, most cats, dogs, people etc will eliminate the previous days food one hour after they've eaten the new meal.  This will help you monitor her bowel movements, doesnt that sound like fun?  ;)  It's going to take a week or so of the once a day feeding to regulate her system which is where the bathroom comes in, by keeping her in here you are going to be sure she is using the box and it sounds like your older cat will get a much needed break from her.  We all spend 1/4 of our day in the bathroom plus an extra visit or two to see her so I am sure she will not be neglected.

If you are currently using uncovered boxes, cover them and vice versa.  Some cats want the privacy, others hate the closed in boxes.  You should also provide her with two boxes, if space allows, yup you read that right!  I have had more than one cat who wants two boxes, one for peeing and the other for pooping.  Some will also not touch a box that another cat has used nor will they go if there is even one mess in it, so what I would recommend is staying on top of the boxes as much as possible.  Since you're in the bathroom and, I believe, cat attract is flushable this should be easy enough.

She should remain in the bathroom until you are relatively certain you've got her system down, it really shouldn't be tough as mentioned it is generally an hour after eating so I would feed her around 6-7pm.  Once this is settled start letting her out during the day but putting her back in the bathroom to eat and then use the box, I would do this for another week or so.  After that I would begin to let her out during the day, put her back to eat but then let her out immediately after leaving both the litterbox in the bathroom and one that is fairly close to the bathroom.  By this point in time she should be back in the habbit of using the box regularly but by knowing her system you will be able to monitor where she is when she should be about to go and best of all you will catch her in the act if she is about to eliminate inappropriately.  She *should* be trained by now but if she is not and you can catch her 'in the act' grab her up and immediately put her in the box.  During the first few weeks that she is out of the bathroom you should have a variety of boxes out in a variety of places, they should be convenient for her to get to.  Over time you can remove one or two but for your situation I would have no less than four boxes in the home.  Keeping in mind that having four is not going to make them go more so it won't be more cleaning it will just be spread out a bit more.  This will help avoid recurrances if she is particularly picky and this may have been what started all of this in the first place.

I have used this type of training with more than one cat and it works like a charm.  It is a lot of work and takes time but I agree that you can not continue to live like that.  If I do not hear back from you and for some reason this does not work, which it never hasn't for me, and you still want to place her I would highly recommend NOT calling your local shelter but calling your local cat rescue group.  These people would never put a cat down for something like this and would put the time in to make sure she gets trained and off to the right home.  Most times they can be found online for any particular area, I would just do a search for  Area, State/Province, Cat rescue and you should get something.

Now as for your second problem with the bullying I would be giving both cats rescue remedy in their water every day. This will help calm both of them. It is my experience that the worst case scenario between two cats that live together if they truly don't get along is that they will stake out their own territories in the house and stick to them.   If she continues to bully after the training she should get a firm NO!(with or without a squirt bottle), abruptly picked up and given a time out.  She will quickly begin to associate her own bullying with the unpleasant feeling of quickly being picked up and taken away from her food, toys, pets of whatever it is she was doing.  This is much easier to fix than the other issue.

The other thing I would worry about here is the health of your older cat.  You mentioned having thorough check ups done on the younger one but often what will happen in a cat dynamic is that when the matriarch starts to decline in health the 'new' younger cat will begin to fight them for the top spot.  This is a phenomena I've seen many times and it is often the first clue that someone is unwell, cats are SO good at hiding from us that they are sick but they can not fool their own kind.  It's possible I am way off base here but again I've seen it happen and it is exactly as you describe.  With 10+ cats in my house at any given time even the youngest will begin to pick on the cat that isn't feeling well, it's part of establishing the hiarchy.

I wish you the best of luck and I do hope I have helped.

Natoma