Hi everyone
Just new to this site and really hoping someone here has experienced a similar problem and found a solution that works. We are at our wits end with our 5 year old beautiful and gentle brown female tabby who we have had for 4 years alongside our magnificent but dominating grey male tabby of the same age. Both came from the Humane Society originally within 2 weeks of each other.
Both cats are indoors and fixed, they have never been the best of friends just tolerant of each other and really through the fault of the male as he is extremely jealous of any attention that is not on him. However as our female tabby grew into a mature cat she has been able to deal with his overbearing personality and actually gets her own back when he picks on her or tries to bully her. She is way more agile and sharper than he is and can leap out of nowhere and frighten the life out of him. Often it is very comical to see their behaviour. There's the usual chasing and spitting every so often but no serious blood letting cat fights ever.
Suddenly it seems about 6 weeks ago something happened without our knowledge and quite out of the blue the female stopped using the litter box. We discovered she had also peed in the bathtub 2 days running. She would act very strangely about 20 minutes before it was time to poop, and then she would run like the wind all over the house as she was pooping as though terrified of the fact it was happening.
At this point we realised either she was not well and needed to see the vet, or there was a litter problem. We had stuck with one uncovered litter box as at the beginning we had two boxes and neither cat used the 2nd litter box ever, always they used the same one. It worked for 4 years no problem.
We went out and got all new litter boxes...4 actually in different areas of the house with the litter we knew both of them liked, cleaned the boxes constantly. Well guess what, she started to use the boxes for peeing again, seemed ok. But not for pooping.This carried on for several days and we finally took her to the vets twice and had all sorts of tests & Xrays done. Everything came back absolutely fine and normal..not even constipated. We started to use "Feliway" the cat hormone spray and diffuser to see if that would help to create calm amongst both cats. The vet suggested she'd been frightened badly in the litter box while pooping and possibly the other cat had ambushed and trapped her or else it was an irritable bowel syndrome.
The visits to the vet seemed to set her back even more, and she went into what seemed to us a chronic depression, plus she didn't trust us anymore as she panicked if we came near her thinking we were going to take her to the vets. She then started to hold in her pee and poop and was now only going every 3 days, plus not eating as much as before. After she would relieve herself, her energy was amazing and she seemed deliriously happy. But the cycle would start all over again It has taken 4 weeks of lots of undivided attention every evening and closed door quality time (away from the other cat), with tranquil music, playtime and massage therapy and cat nip with dry food and snacks to follow - yes , sounds hilarious, but it really has brought her out of what looked to us like a deep depression that she was sinking into and almost "giving up" on life. Very sad to see this happening to a cat that seemed to have nothing physically wrong with her.However she continues to hold her poop for 2 days, sometimes 3, and refuses to use any litter box but no trouble at peeing regularly in the various boxes.
The vet did say her thyroid level was at the higher end of normal for a cat of her young age and could cause irritable bowel and suggested taking her off wet food and sticking with special dry food which we did and it hasn't made any difference at all..she still holds herself and panics when it's time to poop and runs all over the house dropping it as she goes. She was very embarassed to do this at the beginning and would hide under the bed for ages. Now it's like she's perky and not so worried immediately after she does the panic run and poop. We've never chastised her for any of this as she is obviously very frightened and seems quite distraught at the fact she's doing this.
We feel she is improving all the time confidence and interest in life wise but just don't know how to get her pooping back in the litter box again, plus it really is like a phobia as she seems really really terrified of any signals coming from her bowels and just sits quietly for hours until she just can't stop the fact that nature wants to take it's course and then she runs like a bat out of hell in a wild panic. The other cat also seems to have noticed how vulnerable she is and would sit next to every one of the litter boxes and glare at her up until this week when she seems to have developed more confidence and is acting lively like she used to be.


I should also mention that we have put Bach Flower Remedy "Rescue Remedy" in all their water bowls...supposed to relieve severe stress and calm everyone down. On that note you'd think both cats would be comatose by now!! We'll try anything to resolve this and get our female tabby back to her old self.


Thanks for listening...it's a long post, but we have been frustrated at not knowing exactly what is wrong. We even kept her in a nice cosy room for a few days with no access by the other cat, but all her food, litter and toys there...and she totally panicked, refused to eat or use the litter and was absolutely desperate to get out of the room, it seemed too cruel to keep her there . She hates being shut in anywhere. So that won't work for trying to force her to use the litter - the confinement approach for a few days.

So if anyone here has any suggestions or seen this happen before would love to hear your thoughts.

Hiya chuck and welcome to the forum. Sorry you are going through such a distressing time. Your post was quite long so I am not sure whether you said or not that your kitties were neutered, could you repeat whether they are or not. This could importantly address the litter box situation especially if one is an entire male

Yes...both cats we had neutered and fixed 4 years ago. The male cat has never stopped being the green eyed monster... jealous from the very beginning even tho' he gets tons of attention. He will bully the female if he can get away with it, but she's been pretty good at getting him back and standing up for herself all these years. He's packed on a bit of weight just recently due to winter snacking and so seems a little bigger, and it seems he's frightening her more.

Perhaps a strict diet for him and weight loss and she'll not be overwhelmed by his bulky shadow looming near the litter box and less fearful?

I wonder? Could it be as simple as that perhaps????

I just came across your post. I seem to be having an issues that sounds much like yours. Did you ever figure out a solution?