Rethinking feline house soiling: What you should know

Tabitha Kucera, RVT, VTS (Behavior), CCBC, KPA-CTP, FFCP, details 3 key takeaways from her session “Litterbox Lessons: Keeping Cats in the Litterbox,” which she presented at the Fetch dvm360 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

First, she stresses the importance of offering caregivers empathy and support, helping them move away from blame-based narratives surrounding cats, like "spiteful" or "inappropriate" behavior, and instead viewing the issue as "house soiling"—a sign that the patient may be struggling.

Second, a full medical and behavioral workup is key. This includes not only a urinalysis and physical exam but also consideration of pain and other emotional or behavioral factors.

Stress management is also crucial, according to Kucera. Creating safe spaces, reducing household stressors, and addressing multi-cat tension can significantly improve outcomes for both the patient and client.

Below is the interview transcript, which has been lightly edited for improved clarity:

Tabitha Kucera, RVT, VTS (Behavior), CCBC, KPA-CTP, FFCP:

I think 3 key takeaways would be:

1) We should do our best to provide caregivers with hope and support and validate their feelings. And I understand that that's not addressing the medical issue just yet, but as a VTS and behaviorist who commonly deals with caregivers who have been unfortunately struggling with this for really long periods of time, the emotional burden can be really challenging and unfortunately, there is quite a few labels to describe cats, like “spiteful,” or even we call it “inappropriate elimination”—that's already problematic. There's nothing inappropriate about it. The animal is trying to essentially communicate, “I'm struggling with severe stress and/or medical and/or behavioral issues” versus what I call it, “house soiling.”

But when caregivers hear things like “my cat's spiteful,” “inappropriate elimination”—labels aren't really helpful to describe the behavior or its cause, so we can't help, but also it causes caregivers to create—even though they love their cats—to create narratives around like “my cat should know better, they're jealous,” like all of these kind of dangerous narratives where they may not reach out to someone like me or even to your veterinary clinic to get an appropriate medical workup.

So, I think a big thing would be to provide caregivers with hope and support. Understand, “oh, this is so frustrating.” Like, address that, but then also share with them, “I understand how frustrating this can be. I know sometimes it feels like your cats are spiteful, but that's a human thing. I love humans, but that's a human thing.” And then kind of touch on, similar to when your child—I use a lot of analogies— is throwing up because they're not feeling well, your cat is expressing they're not feeling well. So just that will make such a big difference.

2) And then the second thing, I think understanding the full context. So, it's important to obtain more information just like we would with any medical condition. So of course, we want to explore medical possibilities, which, yes, starting with the cystocentesis and a good exam is great, but let's say this cat is repeatedly having these cystitis workups or urinary issues, we should definitely be recommending radiographs and further diagnostics. But also kind of think outside of the urinalysis.

I had a cat once house soiling due to fleas. The discomfort that the fleas caused that animal—understandably—increased their stress and caused that house soiling.

I see pain contribute to more than 60% of my cases, whether it's osteoarthritis pain, GI pain, so of course, bladder pain. So again, we really want to explore those medical possibilities but also consider behavioral and emotional factors.

3) And then the third, I think it's really important to manage and reduce stressors. We all know that a cat's stress organ is their bladder, so identifying and avoiding triggers is a big thing. For example, if [clients are] like, “when friends come over, my cat hides for 5 hours and doesn't return to baseline by coming out and being themselves in 8 hours.” Hey, we're going to set up a safe space for that kitty before people come over with enrichment and make sure it's somewhere they choose to be, not just putting them in a room that causes stress, and we're going to prevent them from interacting with that stranger at all.

Or if you notice—in many cases this is something I see—there is some multi-cat tension. There are some simple things we can do.

Sometimes that might be creating safe spaces and separating cats, depending on the severity of the tension. But increasing resources, meeting their needs. If outdoor cats are a trigger, sometimes I just have my clients as immediate management—“hey, tape up some sheets to your windows.” And also there's really great like window decals that allow the sun to come in, but things are a little fuzzy outside.

So, do your best to manage and reduce stress. Those would be my 3 takeaways.