I've grown up with all different kinds of animals; at least three cats at any point as long as I've lived, two dogs, alpacas for a good half a decade, a horse, and sporadic other smaller tank critters. But this situation is really sending me off the edge.
Me, my fiance and our two cats (Peanut, F ~10 and T-Bone, M ~3) are living in our studio apartment. Peanut was originally adopted by my sister when we were both living with family in the same house and she basically lived in my sister's room. My sister ended up staying with her boyfriend and eventually moving in with him, but left the cat at the family house because me and my fiance enjoyed having her around. My fiance thought she was a dog person but after spending so much time with Peanut she wanted to get another cat. We adopted T-Bone around the time that Peanut had been with us for a year and he's been with us for about five months now.
When we were living with family the two cats were wary of one another but they were mostly separate until we could see they would be able to get along. Before we moved out we began to let them experiment with being in the same room and they seemed to be neutral towards the situation. They're able to eat together and drink from the same bowl, they share beds and even sleep near each other on our bed. Then we moved into the studio and after a few months problems have since arisen.
Peanut has been going to the bathroom anywhere but in the litter; the bathroom mats, the kitchen mats, the living area rugs, and recently there have been smears of feces on the couch and my desk chair and carpet. Today when we came home to find the smear on my chair, we went to start cleaning up the mess and found that in the half a minute we turned around Peanut jumped back up on my chair and pissed on it. We grabbed her to put her in a short (<10min) timeout in the closet, and she crapped there too! We let her out to clean that up and she hid under the bed AND SHIT THERE TOO.
Peanut never did this in the other house, and it didn't happen when we first moved into the apartment; in fact Peanut seemed ecstatic that she had a new space to run around in! But then she would go on the bathroom mat, so we started to close the door at all times (after we went through two new mats). When she started going on the kitchen rugs, we moved one of the ( 3 ) litter boxes to the kitchen right next to the rug and she completely ignored it! So, we got an automatic air can to scare her (and T-Bone) away from the kitchen. Then Peanut started using the living area carpet near the corner of the apartment, so we got a FOURTH litter box to put in the corner for her and it seemed to be working for about a week, until she decided my chair was better.
We did notice early on that T-Bone was waiting outside of the litter boxes while Peanut was using them and jumping her when she left, so we chased him away every time we saw him but unfortunately both of us still work full time through the quarantine. He has stopped doing it since (or at least we don't see him do it), but there are other things we've noticed. My fiance wants to be the best pet-mom so she's been reading up on cat behaviors and teaching, particularly Jackson Galaxy.
T-Bone will get in the litter boxes not to use them but just to be in there for a bit (which may be a dominance thing over Peanut in tandem with the jumping when she finishes). He'll also do his business but not cover it up (which we've read that it may be an attempt to be dominant over us). When they're not thinking of relieving themselves they're fine aside from T-Bone trying to be friendly or trying to play with Peanut, to which she tells him off with a short hiss. He used to give a short chase when this happened but they really don't clash too often if at all any more.
We took Peanut to the vet to rule out other possibilities, (other indicators suggested she might be going deaf), but they cleaned her ears and gave us an antibiotic ointment and she seemed to be doing well again after that. The vet also did a urinalysis just in case but it came back negative for any UTI's or other problems. Plus, in any situation where Peanut is stressed out independently, (like being put in her carrier), T-Bone will come investigate and it seems like he's checking up on his big sister. The vet said the problem is likely rooted in behavior.
Like I mentioned before, they'll eat directly next to each other, share a water bowl and beds, and they'll lay on the bed and couch near one another as long as we're also there. We've tried using Feliway Multicat since the begining to try and help them get along, we've rubbed catnip on their toys beds tubes and the cat tree we have, we've given Peanut calming treats to try and help (but they always say for use before a stressful event so I'm not sure how reliable they are), and now we're trying one of Jackson Galaxy's Stress Stopper synthetic pheromones.
We've also read that getting another cat closer in age to an actual kitten might help as it will keep T-Bone distracted from Peanut and leave her to her own devices. I've been apprehensive to that route because I feel like we should fix the problems with the current relationship before creating new ones, but now that may be our best option as my sister isn't able to take Peanut back.
We called the vet back after the five-times-in-three-hours situation today. They called the original adoption agency for some background information; the adoption agency told us almost nothing when my sister adopted Peanut aside from an approximate age of 10 and "she's great with other cats!" - They told the vet that they found her as a feral stray five years prior covered in scratches and bites, and she was in a solitary space when my sister first met her. All this considered, the vet told us our best options are giving her back to the adoption agency (prefer not to) or putting her down (absolutely not).
I know this is a lot to read and probably really scattered but I'm at a complete loss as to what to try next.
TLDR: Older cat is not using any of the various litter boxes in favor of almost any soft surface in our apartment. Second younger cat may be an instigator but has calmed down and stopped teasing older cat. Vet recommends anything aside from keeping the cat, cat is still sweet and doesn't deserve to be put down. Tired of leaving the apartment scared we'll come back to another mess to clean up.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/ieae8i/10yo_f_cat_wont_use_the_litter_box/
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