Cat Chart

We recently moved to a home with CLOSETS. And CUPBOARDS, which are just mini-closets. We've been here three months and I am still finding new cubbies. Sometimes I put a single box of mac n' cheese in a cupboard just to have something in it. I don't know how many boxes I have hidden this way. I will live this winter like a squirrel, my whole kitchen being a treasure-trove of stashed food surprises.

Sidney, our cat, however, is not so excited by the new space. Or rather, the placement of her litter box in the new space. The bathroom seems a fine place for urination to me. In fact, it was designed for urination. A whole room dedicated to keeping unsanitary things in an easily-disinfected space! Genius!

The cat does not think so. She would rather pee in my office. She communicated this to me by doing so before there was a litter box here. Thankfully, I figured out (after about the third puddle formed under my desk) that this is her preferred urination station and bought a new litter box for just behind my desk. I am not happy about this, but I am a heck of a lot less unhappy than I was a week ago when she was trying to tell her stupid human where she wanted her furniture.

The last week of watching my cat pee (I can't help it, I don't have a lid for the thing yet and she is RIGHT THERE) has been very informative. It has informed me that my cat is bad at peeing. For two days I thought she was pissing just outside of the litter box to spite me. In actuality, she just can't figure out a litter box.

This is a picture of a cat peeing in a litter box. Note that the cat should turn 180 degrees so her butt is to the high wall.

Sidney does not follow this cart. She walks straight into the litter and, butt hanging out the entrance, all four paws planted firmly in litter, pees right out the "in" spot.

She also exits the box wrong. The Boy and I woke up to a clatter and Sidney running for the opposite end of the house like her ass was on fire and her whiskers were catching. In my office, the litter box was exactly 90 degrees rotated.

After peeing (butt hanging out the "in"), she CONTINUED WALKING OVER THE BACK WALL nearly tipping it over. Not one turn had been executed during the whole process.

I intend to print out the above chart and hang it over her litter box. Now to figure out how to spell, "instructions for litter box use" in cat.