How do I get our cat to bury her poop?

I just want her to start burying her poops in the litter box so that we don't have to constantly smell them! That's not what it sounds like to me, since 80% of your question has nothing to do with poop. To me, it sounds like you want rid of this cat, like yesterday, and its very existence is a source of neverending resentment and anxiety for you. You're attributing all sorts of attitudes and behaviors to this cat that cats aren't really even capable of. I don't this this is a calculated ploy on the cat's part. It's just a dumb, weird cat, doing dumb weird cat things that you hate.

Our cat sometimes buries his poop. Other times, he pretends to bury it, taking a couple of half-hearted swipes at the litter, barely moving a grain. AskMeFi should have a button on the "New Post" page specifically for "Why does my cat..." questions. It would link to a page with only three words on it...It's a Cat.

My 12-year-old male tabby gets so excited about taking a dump that he runs in ecstasy from the box all the way across the apartment. Nellie has this special, crowing "WORLD, I HAVE POOPED!" meow that has me expecting to look over and see her standing like Captain Morgan, with her hands on her hips and her Superman cape fluttering in the breeze.

Frankly, I don't think you're beanplating your cat's behavior at all. They are crafty little bastards. She tends to leave a big, stinky turd very shortly after I clean out the litter box in the morning, so I usually end up cleaning the box twice before I leave for work. Ha! Classic annoying Things Cats Will Do To Drive You Crazy. Here's a story: Because I'm a softie about pets and Kinetic 1 works as a veterinary surgical tech, we've had the great good fortune to become a family of 4 people and yes, 4 cats. I know how crazy-making this seems. Because Kinetic 1 wants our cats to have the best of everything, we have 5 (FIVE! cinco! خمسة! senk!) litter boxes. They're the cheapest, bare-bones model and we use wood pellets. C'mon, $8 for 40 freakin' pounds, amirite??! Every morning, I go into the basement where the boxes are kept with my handy scooper and my garbage bag. As I head down the stairs, all five cats, even if they're sleeping on the third floor (and I'm speaking in particular about http://www.flickr.com/photos/dzaz/9476196829/), who is actually kind of my boyfriend but not in a crazy way; it's just that, well...he is my special little friend who likes to sit next to me and give me head butts and will completely smack http://www.flickr.com/photos/dzaz/9476245959/ if they come within our protected Circle of Love), will tear ass down and plop on their fat asses to watch the Scooping Festivities! During the Scooping Festivities, their job is Try and Knock Kinetic Over With Frantic Head Butts, Arm Nibbles and Serpentining Between Her Legs. So I bend and scoop and clean and head back upstairs. And within 10 seconds, I hear happy scratching and wood pellets being shoved about and then all the cats haul butt upstairs and surround me, like they just aced the AP World History Exam or something. They're so damned smug and proud of themselves. Because they pooped in a clean box. tl;dr...cats are weird and they love to poop in clean boxes. And despite your protestation to the contrary, dude, you're a cat person.

Hahaha. This question just made my day. If you were talking about your co-worker I would think you were secretly into her and I'd wonder why your wife wasn't posting about her husband's "emotional affair." The cat is definitely into you. So, for the box, try one of the automatic ones. I don't think you can train a cat to bury its poop. I don't think that you're so far off into thinking it's a dominance thing, but I suspect your cat is just a bit more relaxed when she doesn't have to compete for your affections. Maybe read your question to the cat so that she understands how much you think about her and her problems. Regarding the couch ... now, I don't know why you would even consider upgrading your couches while you have a cat that likes to scratch on couches ... but I have had good luck preventing a cat from scratching the arms and back of a couch by placing throw blankets over those areas. It's not an elegant look but it's worked for me.

Your cat isn't out to get you or your wife. Your cat is a weirdo. That said, I recommend getting a http://www.tidycats.com/products/breeze. It's the best ever for no stinky cat box stuff. Now poops do stink, and Husbunny is not the best of cat box scoopers. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005N0M5YG/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/. This contains all that's unpleasant about the cat toilet. Also, you're going to want to look into a http://www.litterlocker.us/ or a http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B007IHY5CM/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, this makes it easy to de-stank your habitat. Seriously though, your kitty loves you. It's not a bad thing.

Our old lady cat is sort of similar. The uncovered poop, the almost-religious adoration of my husband, plus pissing on my clothing preferentially. Soaking a load of my pissed-soaked laundry right now. Have gotten too good at this. I do think you are way overthinking the cat's motivations here (possibly because of your pre-existing identity as a Cat Hater), but I'm convinced that cats can be spiteful. Like the time that our young cat took a dump, and Old Lady Cat immediately climbed in the box and draped a poo directly on top of Young Cat's turd. She wiggled her butt in just the right way to follow the curve of said turd. That's just malice, there. Anyway, you say your wife adopted this cat. Was the cat already grown when you got her? Also, is it possible she had a rough time before she was adopted? Because Old Lady Cat belonged to my grandmother for ten years, and Grandma made her permanently neurotic about everything, especially litterboxes. Mostly because Grandma filled the litterbox with about a centimeter of yard dirt, and almost never changed the dirt. Until my mother intervened. I don't think Old Lady cat is ever going to trust the cat shitter. Refusing to bury poop is just the tip of her iceberg of foul elimination habits. All we've been able to do to combat the festering exposed feces issue, is get her a litterbox with a hood. And clean it out more than feels necessary. It doesn't hurt to dump baking soda in the litter, but it doesn't help enough to change your life, either. I don't see any pictures of your horrible cat, though. I formally request pictures of your loathsome housemate.

I think you are overthinking your cat. The idea of dominance is an overblown concept in dog behavior, let alone with cats. Cats are weird and can be weird about their poop, but it doesn't mean they're trying to tell you something. They also behave differently toward different people, but who the hell knows why they form their little opinions. Cats are crazy. That said, you have some options for the stinky poo thing. One is to just accept that you're going to be cleaning the litter box more than once a day. If you know that cleaning the box in the morning will induce your cat to take a crap in it (because hey, nobody likes to use a dirty toilet, amirite?) then you may have to resign yourself to cleaning up that crap right after it hits the sand if you want to avoid the stink. Or, since it seems like the cat was mostly your wife's idea, maybe she should have this responsibility. I dunno, I don't know how your marriage works on things like that. Another option would be to get an automatic litter box, like http://www.litter-robot.com/. Not endorsing it, that's just the first one that popped up when I googled "robotic litter box". I've heard good things but have no personal experience. Perhaps someone else here will chime in with some anecdotes.

My older cat doesn't like to touch dirty litter, so instead of burying her poop she paws endlessly at the floor around the box in a sort of cargo-cult attempt to make the stank go away. She's... not very bright. The only solution I found was to get another cat who is a poo-burying fanatic. She takes care of all stray uncovered poop, hers or otherwise.