Risks of Putting Out Dirty Cat Litter

If you have an outdoor-access cat that disappeared from a familiar location, then it makes no sense to put out dirty cat litter.  If they are close enough to smell the litter, they are probably close enough that they already know their way home.  On the other hand, IF you have an escaped indoor-only cat or a displaced outdoor-access cat (i.e. lost from an unfamiliar location or a new home), there is some chance that the scent of their urine and feces MIGHT help them find their way home.  However, before you go and put out the cat litter, you should be aware of the potential risks involved.

Risk of Attracting Other Cats

The most likely risk of putting out cat litter is inadvertently attracting other cats.  If you  have an escaped indoor-only cat, then your yard may be within the territory of one or more outdoor-access or stray cats.  If you put out your cat’s litter, other cats may see this as a threat to their territory.  They may be attracted to the litter box and possibly use it or spray objects around the box.  If your cat smells the scent-marks of the resident cats, they may feel too threatened to return home.  Worst case, you might attract an aggressive territorial cat into your yard, which might chase your cat away.

Risk of Attracting Predators

Many wild predators like foxes and bobcats use their feces to mark their territory.  To do this, they place their scat on prominent locations such as on top of rocks or logs.  Domestic cats on the other hand tend to bury their feces.  This may be an instinctive behavior to protect them from detection by other larger predators like coyotes and bobcats.  By putting your cat’s dirty litter outside, you risk attracting area predators around your home.  Depending on where you live, the risk of attracting predators may be relatively low, but do you want to take that risk?

Should You Ever Put Out Cat Litter?

I generally do not recommend putting out dirty cat litter due to the potential risks of attracting other cats or predators.  However, I cannot conclude at this time whether or not it is a potential attractant for a lost cat.  If you feel compelled to put out your cat’s litter (just in case), please at least follow these guidelines:

• Don’t spread the litter around your yard.  Keep it in a litter box or bowl.
• Don’t put the litter box near the point of escape for a lost indoor-only cat.  This is the location that your cat is most likely to return to on their own.  Don’t risk attracting other cats that might scare your cat away.
• Only put out the litter box in an enclosed area such as a garage, shed or basement where it is less likely to attract predators.
• Don’t ever put out litter for an outdoor-access cat missing from their home.  It just doesn’t make sense.
• Use some sort of surveillance or wildlife camera to ensure that you are not attracting other cats or predators.
• Most importantly – don’t just put out cat litter and hope your cat will return home!  If you aren’t proactive in your search, the chances of finding your cat are very low.

In ten years of searching for missing cats, I have only heard of one case where a lost indoor-only cat appeared attracted to their dirty cat litter.  This cat was lost away from home in a city park.  The owners sprinkled dirty cat litter along the area (thick reeds) where the cat had disappeared.  The first time that they saw her, she had come out of the reeds and was peeing near the dirty cat litter.  However, I have had several other cases where the presence of cat litter (or the lost cat’s belongings) appeared to attract neighborhood cats.

If you have had an experience where cat litter helped find a lost cat OR caused problems in your search (such as attracting neighborhood cats or predators), please share your story in the comments.

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I recently found an interesting research study from Poland that documented responses of cats to people in relation to their distance from human settlements.  Goszczynski et al. (2009) found that the cat’s reaction to human presence (including its owner) may be dependent on the distance from the cat’s home.  At distances of less than 199 m (<650 feet) from buildings, 61% of cats attempted to run or hide when they saw a human observer.  This increased to 94% fear reactions at distances of 200-499 m (650 ft – 1,600 ft), and all cats reacted fearfully at distances over 500 m (0.3 miles).  What is particularly interesting about these results is that the cats in the study were not lost (presumably they were resident cats exploring within the limits of their home ranges), yet they still reacted in fear towards people when the people where encountered outside of their normal context (i.e. cats expect to encounter people near human settlements and not while they are hunting in the woods).  This suggests that a cat does not have to be lost and panicked (or in “survival mode” as it is frequently called) in order for the cat to react instinctively to perceived threats.  Rather this fear response to anything out of the ordinary is a natural continuation of their normal behavior.  I suppose another way to look at it is that cats are always in “survival mode” and it only takes a small change in their normal environment to elicit this fearful behavior.

Literature Cited

Donna Holsten.  Lost Pet Articles.

Goszczynski, J., D. Krauze, and J. Gryz.  2009.  Activity and exploration of house cats in rural areas of central Poland.  Folia Zoologica 58(4): 363-371.

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Research Studies on the Behavior of Outdoor-Access and Free-Ranging Domestic Cats:  Bibliography with Abstracts

If you are interested in learning more about cat behavior, I would also recommend the following books:

Turner, Dennis. C., and Patrick. Bateson, editors. 2000.  The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour. Cambridge University Press.  (This is the best compilation of cat research studies to date, but it is so dense that it can be difficult to read.)

Tabor, Roger.  2003.  Understanding Cat Behavior.  F&W Publications Inc.  (This book is an easy read, but still informative.)

Johnson-Bennett, Pam.  2004.  Cat Vs. Cat: Keeping Peace When You Have More Than One Cat. Penguin Books.  (While not research study based, this book offers useful insights into cat social behavior.  It also has very good information on how to reintroduce a cat back into a multi-cat household, which could be useful for people who find their lost cats.)

There are many other books available on cats, but most focus on how to take care of a cat or how to fix cat behavior problems.  Keep in mind that just because something about cat behavior is published in a book, it doesn’t necessarily make it true.  People can pretty much write anything that they want in books and even people that may be experts on cat behavior problems, don’t necessarily have a good understanding of cat biology.  In contrast, all scientific journal articles must be reviewed and edited by other scientists in the author’s field of research before they are published.

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