I've noticed a peculiar litter box ritual of late with my little male kitty (Ziggy 10wks) and my older female kitty (Molly 1 yr). Ziggy follows Molly into the litter box area (sometimes going in with her)and then when Molly is done with her business, Ziggy covers her business up for her. I've witnessed this three times in the past few days. Ziggy also gets very worked up when I clean out the litter boxes (I keep two). He'll sometimes try and swipe his paw out when I'm scooping stuff. Almost like he thinks I'm taking something precious of his away. Also - they both always seem to want to go in immediately after I've cleaned the trays. Odd? I dont' know. Anyone else have something like this occur?
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Helping Paw
brenalm
Jul 24, 2003 07:13 AM
Replies (3)
JaimeMarie
Jul 24, 2003 09:34 AM
haha poor ziggy maybe he is like a little kid. Some chidren don't like to use the toilet because they think part of themself is being flushed. Maybe he thinks your taking part of him away.
All of our cats fight over who is going to use the litter box first after it has been cleaned so that is normal. Tucker covers up Gabby's (11 wk old) mess when she is done.
PHMadameAlto
Jul 24, 2003 08:19 PM
Most cats will immediately dirty a clean litterbox, because they want to make sure it is marked as "theirs". Probably your cats get upset when you remove the evidence that it belongs to them. But on the other hand, they would equally resent going in a dirty box. Sometimes you just can't win.
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MunchieScrunchie
Jul 26, 2003 10:13 PM
>>He'll sometimes try and swipe his paw out when I'm scooping stuff. Almost like he thinks I'm taking something precious of his away. Also - they both always seem to want to go in immediately after I've cleaned the trays. Odd? I dont' know. Anyone else have something like this occur?
>>
Not odd at all because in fact, you are trying to remove someting precious of his..his scent. And putting new litter in the box doesn't have any of their scent and they want to mark it right away. I don't think I have had clean litter in a box for more than 5 seconds. It's like they hold it in until mom cleans the litter and then there's aline to use the potty. 
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Dottie
