Litter trays

[Didi]

Right I have always followed the advice one tray per cat and one spare so with one cat I have one tray upstairs and one downstairs so why does he refuse to use the upstairs one ? He will be up there playing and come down to use the tray. Is it common for cats to have a favourite tray and totally ignore the others or is it just one more of his foibles, like refusing to eat his dry urinary food out of a dish but put it in an empty treats bag and he will wolf it down

It's not a problem I just wondered how other cats are with multiple trays

[Ruth B]

Cats are contrary, this seems to be the best explanation for this type of behaviour.

Having said that there are reasons why they make certain choices.

At one point we had 3 litter trays for the 3 cats (not ideal but I ran out of rooms to put them in), 2 got used continually, the third after a couple of times, never. In the end after I had been cleaning the others out twice a day for months and never having to do anything with the third, i decided it was a waste of litter and removed it. Not being there never caused a problem. The reason I can come up with was it was a covered tray. The other two are nice big, deep, open trays, and I think they just prefered to be able to see around them.

Cats will often also go where the others do. It is a way of marking territory and displaying dominance by covering the other cats smell with their own.

And of cause there is always the one that prefers to use the garden even when the weather is atrocious. Tiggy will not do solids in the litter tray, she has to go outside, the only time she went inside was when it had snowed and she couldn't wait any longer, and then she really let me know she wasn't happy. My two youngsters are the opposite they will both come in from outside to use the litter tray rather than using the garden.

[greenkitty]

I did exactly the same, had 4 trays for my 3 cats.. 3 trays downstairs and 1 upstairs, they refused to use the upstairs tray so I gave up with it in the end and removed it. They would all come downstairs to use those trays. Gotta love cats

[Kay]

It's the same with sleeping spots - the bed favoured for months is suddenly deserted - only to be occupied again the night before it's due to be dumped.

No one could ever persuade me they don't do it on purpose to show us who's boss

And the fantastic food in the sample becomes pure poison in a 4kg bag