Me again! While I've been making progress on persuading Monty that physical contact isn't horrible (even now managed to stroke him gently a couple of times while he's half-dozing, not just while his head is in his food dish!) he's lost some of those brownie points by deciding to pee and poo on one of my sofas. I realise this is probably prompted by something I'm doing and isn't him being naughty or anything, but just wanted to check whether my approach to dealing with it sounds about right. For reference he's a healthy 11 month old neutered boy cat, with a similarly aged second male cat he's friends with in the house as well, he's been adopted from a shelter and has been here about five weeks, currently kept inside.
I first noticed it on Saturday when I saw him doing it, but by the looks of things he'd peed there a couple of times before. I wasn't sure if possibly he just wasn't happy with the litter tray situation, although I spot-clean/remove both solids and wet patches whenever I see them and change completely when they look to need it. It's paper based litter which is what they used at the shelter and seem fine with. So I completely emptied, cleaned and changed the trays, chucked the throws in the wash and cleaned the wet spot on the sofa cushion. Then I put some old towels and clean throws back on and sprinkled some lemon essential oil over the sofa to deter recurrence. Seen him using the trays since for both pee and poo, but there was another wet patch on the sofa yesterday evening.
I'm guessing 'marking' the sofa has now become something of a behavioural habit - since he returns there but uses the trays at other times and doesn't do it anywhere else. So I've decided to put another litter tray down actually on the sofa seat itself - blocked one half of the sofa off with a wire hamster cage lid and the tray now takes up the other half. He peed in the tray overnight and I've seen him pee and poo in it again this morning - he clearly approves! So I figure the tray can stay there for a few days and then I'll move it to the floor next to the sofa and block the empty space off, and he'll hopefully follow the tray and gradually remove the link between the sofa and peeing/pooing. Does that sound about right? Or by putting the tray on the sofa am I perhaps instead irreversibly linking sofa and toileting?