Kitten potty training.

We have accidently acquired a new kitten, now about 12 weeks old. She is proving rather difficult to litter tray train. She will use it at night and while she is confined to the Kitchen, no trouble. She does not go anywhere else in there. However, if we allow her into the rest of the house she uses any odd corner of the room. It was suggested it was nerves, but she does not go immediately. She plays with the other cat for a long time, or if she is out, kitten (Moppet)will play by herself and or sleep etc., then when she feels the need off under the coffee table or by the front door or under the settee she goes.
So, has anyone any sensible suggestions? She cannot go out until she is 6 months old and has had all her injections and been neutered. We could keep her in the kitchen, but since we have go throught it to go out or come in, it disturbs her every time.

 

palustris, you will just have to keep an eye on here and every so often put her in the litter tray, when rosa was little iff she was asleep as soon as she woke up i put her on the paper,she will get the message eventually, good luck

 

Hello, Palustis. Not a nice problem but nerves could be the problem getting used to a new environment.

I've had cats for 40 years and have never really encountered this.

When my Magic Sam (Boo) now twelve had the top of his leg cut off so it could mesh into the hipbone (to this day this it was a bad call on the vet's part) at seven months old following a tango with a car, I had to carry him everywhere for a couple of months. Fortunately at the time I worked from home and my office was upstairs so we had to have litterboxes upstairs and down. I must admit I had to hold him up in the box when nature called.

My only suggestion is that you take another litter box into the living room or hallway when she is allowed in those areas, firmly plop her in it as soon as you put it down ... then hope for the best. Cats are sensible for the most part and, pointed in the right direction, comply ... but you may have to be persistent.

I don't know if this is practical for you. Pehaps someone else will come along with other ideas.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

We have had cats for the last 25 years or so and never had this problem before either. If we catch her in the act, and put her in the litter tray, she then refuses to go at all for the next few hours!
If she used the same place each time then we could put the tray where she was choosing, but she never uses the same place twice on the run!
We have tried all the normal things so far, nothing is working.

 

The litter tray should be accessible and nice from a cat point of view. Positioned in a quiet corner, where no sudden noises occurs (which could scare the little one for goods), better covered if the cat is shy, not perfumed (some yeast in powder at the bottom could be useful to prevent the smell), on a warm surface like an old cloth . there is no need to teach the little one to dig, because that will come naturally.

 

She uses the litter tray! All day and all night, but only when she is kept in the Kitchen. So, it is NOT the tray or its position or its contents or its warmth which are the problem.

 

Palustris, t'other half agrees with me that at least two boxes are necessary, especially now that you say she won't go in the same place twice. Sorry, could be lots of litter changing involved.

I think she'll come around with lots of loving and caring.

By the way, you didn't say the environment she came from ... there may be a clue there ????

 

Sorry Lady, I did not think to put up details. This is what I posted on another site the day after we found her.

We found this today, screaming blue murder in our hedge. Friends down the road say it has been around a few days, drinking from their pond and eating bird food. They tried to catch it, but it disappeared. It is eating solid food so it is not still on milk From its behaviour it is definitely not a housecat. There has been another slightly bigger cat wandering about for a week or so.
We caught it because our cats and the neighbours were preparing to attack and here is no doubt the local buzzards would have taken it. The foxes are about too.

This is what she looked like a week later.

 

When my Ripley was a kitten, she had a smilar problem where she would use the litter tray downstairs but not if she was upstairs. The vet said it was just a case that her bladder was full and the litter tray far away.

Try giving her a treat and lots of congratulations if you catch her in the litter tray. Then she might start going to the bother of using it in hopes of another one.

 

Done all those things and she has just gone in the corner of the living room. Thought we had cracked it when she was seen going back to the tray everytime she needed to, yesterday, but today............. She has until the end of next week and if she does not learn then, well Cats Protection League here she comes.

 

Ahhhh maybe she,s just slow, like some humans, :D

 

Do you have a pet behave spray?

My boy cat, Dallas recently started peeing on the welcome mat and in the living room after 1.5 years of a perfect cat litter record.

Admittedly he was easier to cure as he did it in the same place each time. I used a combination of shouting at him when I caught him in a 'naughty' place, and congratulating him in the 'good' place.

But on top of that, after cleaning the area, I put newspaper on top of it and sprayed it with the cat behave spray (it's not very nice, so I didn't want to spray it onto my carpet directly)

It turned out that his problem was that he suddenly decided he didn't like the covered litter tray and once I removed the roof, he started improving. However, the smelly spray certainly made him think twice about wetting in the living room.

 

Might try that, but if it affects the other two cats badly, it may be a problem. She has spent the day locked in the Kitchen with no litter usage troubles. Sounds bad, but our Kitchen is a passage way, so she is not alone for any longer than she would be in any other room in the house. Slow or not she will have to learn, we have tiny grandchildren and the last thing we want is them to be affected by this hygiene problem.

 

to me it sounds like the cat likes the kitchen when nobody is there and it becomes a quiet corner (for example when he is locked in there), but not when the kitchen is in use and therefore becomes noisy and unwelcoming from his point of view. This is as much as I can say with the information that you give.