HaHa, Payback for the haircut.
Seriously though, That sucks.
My Son In Law hooked up his night vision hunting camera to catch his cat doing the same, but what was funny was the cat went right up close and personal with the camera and left his gift.
I was going to say the same thing. It's revenge for the shave job, pure and simple!
Shitty Kitty!!
How does one go about correcting that behavior?
If a cat has peed or crapped in carpet, the smell of it there will cause it to be a target forever. We had a couple of places where we had carpet that had gotten blasted (pee) over and over. When we finally removed the carpet and had the beautiful oak floors under that stupid carpet finished (polyurethane for the win!), the behavior stopped immediately. It's just no fun to pee on an easily cleanable surface! I don't know what motivated the previous owners of the house to install carpet over gorgeous oak floors to begin with, so it was a blessing to pull it up and find that excellent wood underneath.
As has been stated above, there are a number of reasons why a cat might stop using the cat box. But don't rule out revenge!
Seriously, when I was first going out with my not-yet-wife, the cat I had targeted her clothing. She left a sweater in a bathtub spread out to dry properly (I guess - I'm not much for any sort of fancy clothes or their maintenance) and the cat whizzed on it. When I showed insufficient sympathy for this affront, my wife-to-be was pissed (for lack of a better word). I told her not to be mad at me, I didn't hold the cat over her sweater and squeeze him! She actually laughed at that and calmed down over it.
Eventually the cat did accept her and my stepson-to-be as well. But he was just used to living only with me, and I think he was jealous, so he soiled only her stuff. Once they got to be friends, everything was cool.
We've had a number of cats, (up to six at a time) in the years since then, and had exactly zero trouble with any of them going outside of the box. And oddly, we do what the experts tell you NOT to do. We have ONE, count 'em ONE cat box for the whole herd. I think it's actually far less confusing for them. There's ONE place to go, not lots scattered about the house.
But the secret is that it's HUGE. 96 Quart Rubbermaid container in its own place, with 24/7 lighting, and a HEPA filter setup so it's kind of like a laboratory fume hood. Keeps the dust in place, is comfortable, large, and well lit. They'll line up to use it and wait their turns. Especially right after I do the nasty, and it's all clean!
Most cat litter boxes are tiny. I think they need plenty of room to move around and not feel cramped and vulnerable. And they can go buck-wild digging and kicking the litter around if they feel like it. A too-small litter box is not appealing, inviting, comfortable, etc.
Anyhow, this method might not be for everyone, but I like the ONE HUGE cat box technique. It's been flawless for at least 20 years for us, with a lot of cats. But if you've got a place that's been peed on, or presumably crapped on, if it's carpet, I'm not sure you can ever sanitize it enough to get rid of the smell well enough to keep it from being a pee magnet forever after. That's where the hard, waterproof floors and area rugs come into play. But we've actually never even had to get rid of a rug, either. We just had to get rid of that nasty old carpet, and presto! Zero, I mean zero out-of-the-box thinking after that.
Your mileage may vary, of course!
