What are we going to do with this cat?

Tuck has been pooping outside of the litterbox.

It first began about three years ago. I wrote back then that we were frustrated to no end, that he was pooping right in front of the litterbox, but not IN it. He would pee in there just fine, but he would only poop outside the box. We would clean and clean the floor, as well as use the pet odor neutralizing sprays. The spray only succeeded in him pooping in a slightly different spot than the time before. At the time, we had one very large box for all three of our kitties, and several folks suggesting that he might no longer be willing to share with the girlies. We bought another giant litterbox and immediately all was well.

Until about a year ago, when he began doing it again. By then, we had moved into this house. Once again, we used the sprays and cleaned up everything immediately. We had also begun buying completely new boxes and rugs for the cats' room (they have a rug beneath the two litterboxes, helping to catch the litter from their paws before tracking it all over) every six months. When he started with the behavior last year, we realized it was about time to replace everything again, and we did so. He immediately began using the boxes again.

A little over three weeks ago, he began pooping outside the box again. Twice a day, he would poop in either the office or a little-used corner of the living room. We replaced the boxes and rugs - no success. We tried extra positive attention and loves. We would literally talk to Tuck throughout our entire day, and we would constantly call him up onto the couch or bed to snuggle with us, ignoring the girl kitties in the process. It didn't help at all, either.

And it wasn't like something was physically wrong with him, as if he just couldn't hold it any longer. No, each episode was well-planned. For example, he would come meowing into the office, and I would invite him into my lap while I worked. He would snuggle with me for an hour, and then when my legs fell asleep, I'd move to the floor to be with him some more. Then I would begin reading a book on the floor, and Tuck would settle into a catnap. Then - oops! - the phone would ring, and I would leave the room to get it. When I would come back less than two minutes later, he would have pooped right where we had been sitting, and he would be hiding somewhere else.

Another time, I camped out in the office in the afternoon, and A.J. sprawled on the living room floor to do his homework (instead of the table in the dining room). He purposely was in the living room so that he could keep an eye on Tuck if the cat decided to go in the corner again, while I was on the watch for him to enter the office. In that instance, Tuck chose to poop in the dining room instead.

I practically tore my hair out, I swear. And Philip was just as, if not more frustrated. After almost two solid weeks of him pooping twice a day somewhere in the house, we began to shut him into the cats' room while we were away. I was working from, roughly, 10-2, and I would shut him in the room right before I left the house. Then when I arrived back home, I would set him free once more (and the girl kitties would RUSH into the room, having been forced to hold their own pees and poops in the process!). I would love on Tuck for half an hour, and then I would leave to pick up the boys from school...

and he would poop in the house in that fifteen minutes while I was gone. Doing so AFTER he had just been shut in a room with his litterbox for OVER FOUR HOURS.

So one night, right after another incident, Philip put him into the garage. We were upset, and we'd intended to leave him there until morning, but I felt so guilty as we talked about it in bed, and I was crying. We caved, and we let him back into the house within just a couple of hours, and he slept soundly on our bed most of the night.

And we woke to poop in the office in the morning.

This pattern continued for about two more days. On Tuesday afternoon, I was helping A.J. to make his dessert for that night in the kitchen, and Philip was watching television in the living room. Tuck wandered in, and Philip called to him, trying to get him to snuggle on the couch. Instead, Tuck only walked by for some petting, but then sat a few feet away from Philip on the floor. When Philip "watches" TV, he really falls asleep, and within minutes of him drifting off, A.J. and I were suddenly assaulted with the smell of fresh poop. The dining room windows and the living room sliding screen were open, and there was a massive draft - it alerted us to the poop almost instantly.

I yelped as I discovered it in the corner of the living room, and Philip jumped up from the couch mid-doze. He was groggy, yet mad. Tuck was nowhere to be seen, having hidden immediately (as he'd been doing). Philip found him in the cats' room, and he pulled him from his hiding spot. As he picked him up to take him straight to the garage, Tuck struggled and scratched Philip's left arm with one of his back claws. Philip nearly dropped him, and sort of "squatted" as he went down, in order to get a better grip on the cat. Instead, just as he reached for a better hold, Tuck turned and bit Philip fiercely on his right hand and arm, several times. Philip dropped him completely, and then had blood running down his arms and all over the carpet.

He had serious puncture wounds to attend to, and I was frightened. A.J. had been doing his homework at the table during this, and he was distraught. He saw Philip bleeding everywhere, and he began crying, asking what would happen if Tuck tried to bite poor Kiki or Baby?

It took over 40 minutes for Philip to get the bleeding under control, and in that time, I was on the phone to the vet. I was frantic, and I called the one closest to us, rather than the one our kitties had seen. After fully explaining the situation and speaking to the vet for half an hour, we'd devised a plan:

- leave the cat alone for 48-72 hours. No one was to handle him, and we were supposed to basically ignore him. We were to give the cat a chance to calm, settle down, and mellow out a bit.
- because a bite was involved, begin a 10-day at-home quarantine. Do not introduce the animal to new pets or people. (This was easy, as all our cats are completely indoor animals.)
- buy a giant new litterbox. (The vet explained that some male cats just really become sensitive to odor as they age, and that the covered-style boxes hold the odors in. We were to buy a large Rubbermaid container and just forget the lid.)
- try pheromones therapy. (The pheromones would mellow all the cats the same, but we specifically wanted to try them in the hopes that whatever was stressing Tuck would be alleviated.)
- bring the cat in on Friday for a behavioral consultation.

Philip was already ready to head to the Urgent Care Clinic for treatment of his puncture wounds, and the vet definitely recommended it as well. He left, and returned about two hours later.

With a different game plan, as per military regulations:

- take Tuck to the vet on-base for the first appointment the next morning

(And, by the way, I was so aggravated to learn that the military docs did not prescribe Philip antibiotics for his puncture wounds, nor did they even wash/sanitize them! Grrr. WTF did he even go for, then? Oh, right - because we both knew that puncture wounds are potentially serious biz, and because you can't be too careful with them. Guess the UCC team didn't get that memo. *mad*)

...

We were both concerned. Not only had the one vet told us not to bother Tuck for a few days, Philip was quite chewed up, and I didn't want him to risk getting hurt further trying to put Tuck into a kennel the next morning. Also, having seen the wounds and having been the one who scrubbed blood out of the carpet for an hour, *I* did not want to risk getting hurt trying to kennel him myself, either. But we had no choice, so we hoped for the best.

We headed out to get the giant new litter "box", and returned home with two huge Rubbermaid bins with no lids. These things are so much larger than what we had, even though we had the biggest litterboxes available. We readied the boxes and fed the kitties. Tuck would not come out for food, and he stayed well-hidden under our bed.

The next morning, Philip somehow managed to crate Tuck, and then he left for work. (This was at 4:30am.) The boys and I got up for school a few hours later, and I entered the dining room to chat with Tuck while they dressed. He was meowing so very sadly, and he had tears in his eyes. I choked up, feeling so bad for him, and knowing that he was so scared. I dropped the boys off at school early enough for breakfast so that I could be at the base vet right when they opened at 8am.

And everything went downhill from there. :-(

Because Tuck had bitten someone, we had to prove his rabies vaccinations were current. I didn't bring anything with me (I didn't know I had to, and I'd not even been told that by the other vet when we were discussing the original plan). Even so, I'm a crappy keeper of kitty records (I know, I know), and Tuck doesn't wear a collar because he is 1) an indoor cat, and 2) is such a large, large kitty that collars always rub off the fur on his neck, and it looks painful. So I gave them the name of the clinic we take the kitties to, and they called.

Only to find that the clinic had NO records for us. Well, that's not true. They had records for us for a cat named Max, and that's useless - we have NEVER had a cat named Max. I called Philip to be sure of the correct vet, and he knew it to be the one that I had mentioned. I also called Heather, and while she thought it might have been this other one, I was still SO CONVINCED that I was remembering it correctly. The receptionist was kind enough to call a handful of places, but she had no success. And because records couldn't be located at all, the base regulations require a 10-day quarantine at a boarding facility, meaning that we had to surrender Tuck to the Nebraska Humane Society.

And it had to be done immediately. As in, I couldn't even take him home while I worked and then take him in later that afternoon/evening. No, now - RIGHT now. I called both Philip and Heather sobbing while the vet did some more paperwork before sending us over. I felt SO BAD for Tuck. I knew he was scared, and I felt terrible that now he'd been packed up in his fear, and he wasn't even going to get to go home. I was being forced to strand him. :-(

I cried all the way out to the Humane Society (the receptionist was sweet and printed me directions from Mapquest). I fervently hoped that treehuggies would be working right then. At least then, I would feel like Tuck would have a friend on the inside, and I would be able to take some much-needed hugs from her as well. But when I arrived and asked for her, she'd just gone home sick for the day. :-(

I sobbed while filling out the paperwork, having to sign papers that also talked about destroying the cat if not picked up on the appropriate day, etc. It was heartbreaking. I talked and talked to Tuck, and he looked so very sad and so very scared. Too soon, a lady said she'd take him, and I couldn't even choke out the words. I tried to say, "Goodbye Tuck, I love you," but my throat closed completely over after the "bye."

And so he's gone for 10 days. We can't pick him up until the 16th, and we're not-so-patiently counting the days. I've called to get a status check each day (it would break my heart to hear that he's so scared he's not eating or drinking), and he's doing alright. They say that he stays smushed in the back corner of his cage and just stares, giving everyone the "evil eye" as they pass him, but that he's eating well.

Poor, poor Tuckster. Stuck in jail, and I'm sure, wondering why we just deserted him. :-(

When I arrived home again after work that afternoon, I tore my office apart looking for some sort of file for the vet. Sure enough, it was EXACTLY the vet I'd been sure it was earlier. And I called for an hour to get through (it was busy forever), and then chewed them out royally for losing our records.

Meanwhile, Kiki went to the base vet the very next day to get her records re-established and current, as well as to get micro-chipped, and Baby has an appointment next Thursday for the same. And I started a new file system for the kitties, and have been tracking down information from here to Alaska (where we adopted Kiki and Tuck), trying to rebuild their files. I've also called and been extremely angry with the vet clinic that lost/tossed records, and the best they can offer is, "We'll keep an eye out for your files, and we're sorry."

Meanwhile, we went to Petco and bought the pheromones stuff and have it installed now (and I am *not* a fan of the smell), as well as new collars for all the kitties. We bought Tuck a small dog collar, and hope that it will fit him a little better, and we'll never be without current tags and vet info again.

*sigh*