Hello all,

We've got two F4s - almost 2 year old brother & sister. Lex is an active monster, and Chloe is comparatively much calmer (although still into everything!). They play nicely together sometimes, and roughly sometimes. He's about twice her size, but the rough & tumble is fairly matched. She gives as good as she gets.

They have lived with us for 3 months (we are their 'god parents'), and in that time we've only had one toilet accident. It was actually a couple of times in one spot (a room we don't use much, so I didn't notice at first). I threw away the duvets they weed on, and have kept that room closed off since. I can't seem to get the smell out of the carpet fully though, and they are very interested in that spot if I let them in that room.

The above weeing incident did happen the week one of my Nana's passed away and I found out the other has terminal cancer, so I'm sure they were reacting to the stress in our normally very chilled out home.

My OH has noticed that after one of them uses the litter tray the other can be quite rough with their sibling. He suggested us getting another tray, which I think is a good idea. They are used to one, but our flat is much bigger than the one they are used to.

Question - should I put it right next to the other one, which is in 'their' area, in the hallway, in the middle of our place, or should I put it in the room they weed in, as that is right down the other end of the flat?

Thanks in advance for the advice (again!)

The general rule seems to be one litter tray per cat, plus one extra. I think the reality is that not everyone has room but if you can, that's a good idea. In terms of where you put them, it depends a bit on their habits, the size of your house and where you want the trays to be. Once you put a tray in a room, they'll probably use it at least some of the time so don't put one anywhere you're not prepared for it to be used. In my experience, Bengals are quite social toileters so two trays together will probably be fine. If you've got a big house though, a tray on each floor might be a good idea. I have one in my attic and two on the ground floor so that wherever they are, they've only got one flight of stairs to go up/down.

_________________

We're a large (for London) flat, all on one floor. Square footage about the same as a 3 bed terrace house I'd say. We've got 20 internal stairs, but as far as the cats are concerned they are just a playground, as they only go to the front door, and they're not allowed out of it.

I would like to be able to have the back bedroom open, and wouldn't mind a tray in there, as long as it's not encouraging them back to the scene of the crime, to do more rogue wees in unwanted places...

They do pick up on stress so that may be what prompted them to wee inappropriately in the first place but you're right that you don't want to reinforce the behaviour. I'm afraid I can't remember what the best cleaning solutions are but I think if you search through the behaviour section on the forum, you should find some tips on how to remove the smell from the original episode. There are quite a few tales of cats who pee on soft items like duvets, especially if they've been washed with fabric softener, so if you can leave the spare beds without duvets on, it might be a good idea in the short term. Dolly used to wee on the duvet if she managed to sneak into the spare room but she's never done it on the duvet on my bed. My solution was simply to bag up the spare duvet and put it away in a cupboard. I never leave washing lying around either in case it's a temptation. She also used to wee on shiny things when she was a kitten - plastic bags, silver foil etc. It seemed to be an attention thing because she only ever did it when I was close by. Happily she's grown out of all those habits, apart from still peeing in the downstairs sink occasionally

_________________

My cats have two trays between them, right next to each other. They end up using one for poo only and the other for wee only.

Thanks for the replies.

I think I'll put the new one right next to the old one. I'll deal with the back bedroom issue when the weather warms up and I don't have half our flat shut off because of the cold. Brrrrr...

Hurry up summer!

_________________
Best Wishes
Christina
www.sungold-bengals.co.uk