This is a specific conversation about Cat litter boxes — size, type, and placement — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
Before we get into the bullying problem, it's worth knowing that most litter boxes are too small — cats need a tray at least 1.5 times their own body length to use comfortably, and covered boxes, while tidier for you, often make cats feel trapped and exposed to ambush, which is the last thing a bullied cat needs. With three cats and only two boxes you're already one short — the rule of thumb is one box per cat plus one extra, so you really need four. How big are your three cats, roughly — are any of them quite large? And is the bullying happening at one specific box, or both?
They're all medium-sized, maybe 4–5kg. The dominant one is a neutered male and he tends to patrol near the two boxes we have, which are both in the same corner of the bathroom. The other two are females and they've started going outside the box occasionally, which I think is stress.
inparticular.ai
That outside-the-box behaviour is almost certainly stress, yes — and the fact that both trays are in the same corner is a big part of the problem. From your dominant male's point of view, he's guarding one territory. The females can't get to either box without going past him. So even if you added a third box in that same spot, he'd still be able to block access. Location is just as important as quantity here. Are there other rooms in the house where you could realistically put an extra tray — somewhere the male doesn't tend to hang out?
Yes, there's a spare bedroom he rarely goes into, and the hallway is fairly quiet too. I'm open to putting boxes in different places, I just wasn't sure it would make much difference.
inparticular.ai
It makes an enormous difference — separation is actually the main fix here. What I'd recommend is the Savic Senator Open Litter Tray XL. It's a large, uncovered tray — about 58cm long — which is generous enough for a 5kg cat, and crucially it has no hood, so a cat using it can see in all directions and can't be cornered. Get two or three of these and spread them across different rooms: one in the spare bedroom, one in the hallway, and keep one in the bathroom if your dominant male settles there. The open design is important — covered boxes are already stressful for bullied cats, but in a guarding situation they're genuinely problematic. The Savic Senator is widely available on Amazon UK, straightforward to clean, and the XL size means your cats aren't squatting in a box that's too cramped.
That makes sense. Should I get rid of the covered boxes I already have, or just add the new ones and see what happens?
inparticular.ai
I'd swap them out rather than just add to them. If the females have already associated the covered boxes with stress and ambush, keeping those in the mix means you're leaving the problem half-solved. Introduce the new open trays in the separate locations first, let everyone get used to them over a week or so, then quietly retire the covered ones. Once the females realise they have safe, visible exits and the male can't patrol all three locations at once, the stress toileting outside the box should stop pretty quickly. Keep the litter type consistent across all the trays for now — changing litter at the same time as changing boxes gives you too many variables if something goes wrong.
Really helpful, thank you. I'll order a few of the Savic Senator XLs and set them up in different rooms this weekend.
inparticular.ai
Good plan. Give it two to three weeks — that's usually enough time to see whether the outside-the-box incidents stop. If one female is still avoiding a tray after that, it's worth checking whether the male has started patrolling the new location too, and move that tray again. The goal is that every cat always has at least one box they can reach without running into him. You're very close to solving this just by spreading things out.
