Ok this is going to be a long one about how i fucked up funny while trying to get my cat to pee in the right place.
Let's start with the criminal, Sambinha, a smart orange boy (i know!)
He's a quircky boy and very particular about things. He has a scheduled routine he scheduled himself. He meows behind me twice a day on the clock because it's food time. He also pees outside of the litterbox when he's vaguely annoyed.
I am on the 12st litterbox. Changed all sizes, all types, all placements in my small house. He is healthy and other than his eye condition (Eyelid Agenesis), he has all his needs met. Litters are cleaned once and up to trice a day, depending on the load.
I don't know why he pees outside of the litterbox in exactly three different spots maybe four times a week.
So i decided to give him a treat every time he pees inside of the litterbox because hey, it's been 4 years of this behavior, let's try some youtube self help that's aways the way. You're going to go like "oh wow positive reinforcement!" and i thought the same, but this cat is smarter than i am.
If Sambinha pees on the right places, i go to check if it's his (Sambinha has other two cat roommates), and if it is he gets a treat. He is HIGHLY treat motivated. He'd kill you for a treat. He might kill me.
If he pees outside, i started by showing Sambinha the no-no and not giving him a treat, to putting the pee into the litterbox and then giving him a treat. He figured out pretty quickly that if he pees inside he gets a treat and outside he gets nothing.
Break to show him face. See? him face.
Then the shenanigans started.
He'd pee/poop and go behind my chair and meow. "Treat time, mother, provide!" I check and i'd try to make sure the organic waste was his, because he shares 3 litterboxes. Most of the times i got it right, but he noticed variance.
So Sambinha would use the litter and ask for a treat, but he'd also demand a treat the same way even when i could tell there was no recent usage of the forbidden sand. He figured out he wouldn't be getting free treats that way.
When i am not home, i come back to him walking me to the litterbox to present me something i assume it's his, because i wasn't home and didn't see. He gets no treats there because, see *inhales*
I can't tell if it's his pee.
Sambinha has been trying to pull one over me since day one with passing his bro and sis pee as his.
It's been this wacky back and fourth to TODAY when i hear litterbox activity, turn my back to see him on the stairs. It's is sis using it, i can tell because Sambinha is on the stairs, waiting, patiently.
Then, when she's done, he goes to the bathroom, sniffs it and THEN walks behind my chair and meows with utter certainty he's getting a treat. I give him a look of HOW DARE YOU
And he meows louder, betrayed that i called his bluff, in agony he can't get a single treat and i am STARVING the young man to death!!
And i present you with the face of a man disgruntled with the foiling of his plans, pictures taken while he voiced his concerns to a god who doesn't answer to his pleas (cone unrelated to pee shenanigans)
He's got a new behavior. He pees on the wrong place stills. I love him and his orangeness. He is VERY LOUD and opinionated.
And let me know if adding a 5th litterbox will help (it didn't)