Howdy,

 I have an alpha-male cat that sometimes doesn't use the litterbox.
I've been mainly putting the blame on him, and getting pretty fed up
with it. But the few times I'm around to see what is happening things
become a bit clearer. It appears he starts at the litterbox but then
has to work pretty hard at it... He ends up running around or running
elsewhere, and doing the second half of the chore elsewhere. I'm
feeding both the cats this purina standard adult dry food. A friend
said if it's pretty hard then perhaps the cat needs an enema, and
perhaps a vet visit, as that was required for his.

 I'm thinking a change in diet is needed. Any quick suggestions
outside of a vet visit? He said he had to feed his cat pumpkin. I would
kind of prefer to stick to dry food as I'd like to move to an automatic
feeder so the feed time can be regularly scheduled, but if I must move
to wet food I could work around it.

 Any advice is appreciated!