kitten not using the litter tray please help

Are you using scented litter? Most cats don’t like it – what smells good to us is way too strong for their sensitive noses and they try to avoid it.

Clumping litter isn’t a great idea for little ones – they tend to get it in their tummies when they clean their feet and it can slow things down or sometimes cause an intestinal blockage.

So, make sure the litter is unscented and non-clumping to start with. Put the litter on the bottom of the tray, add newspaper to the top and sprinkle Cat Attract Litter on the whole thing. You can buy Cat Attract in most major pet stores. I think it’s made by Precious Cat. You don’t have to fill the whole tray with special litter, just get the stuff that you add to regular litter. What ever is in it really appeals to kitties and it almost always works.

When he gets a little older you can slowly switch out the non-clumping with clumping litter and decrease the amount of newspaper until he is using litter only. Just like changing food, most cats do better when the switch over is done gradually.

Be sure no one is giving the little guy negative vibes about his tray. That can happen if someone yells at him or picks him up and dumps him into the tray when he’s made a mistake. When he does make an error, it helps if you pick up the poop and dump it into his litter box. The scent of his own poop in the box helps associate the function of the box in his mind.

Try the Cat Attract as soon as you can. Most people recommend cleaning the tray once a day, and putting in all fresh litter once a week. When you can switch to clumping litter, you can usually wait a couple of weeks before you need to start fresh, but you still need to scoop daily. If the litter gets stinky, even when it’s scooped, it’s time to change it.

The idea of putting a cat in a small area (like the bathroom) is so he won’t go wandering off and find hiding places for his little jobs. It does work, but not always. You always want to be careful not to have the litter tray too close to his food and water – cats don’t like eating in the bathroom anymore than a human would.

Also remember that the little guy is just a baby. It takes a little while and a bit of patience to toilet-train them. Think of how long it takes to toilet-train a human.

Putting him in the tray when he wakes up, after he’s eaten and after a play session is an excellent way to help train him.

Obviously if you see him start to squat elsewhere you’ll want to pick him up and rush him to the tray. But you don’t want anyone to yell at him or he will start associating elimination with anger. Then he will just go hid to poop.

If you have an area, like a bathroom or kitchen, where he can be confined when you aren’t with him, that’s fine to do. He doesn’t need the run of the house while he’s little and may even be safer in a smaller area when you are at work/school/whatever.

Make sure you are using enzyme cleaner to remove the smell of his “accidents” otherwise he’ll go back to where he’s eliminated before. Also, if he’s going to the same stop, could you move the litter box to that corner? Also, make sure the litter box isn’t in a high traffic area and make sure he doesn’t have a chance to stray to far away from the litter box or he may not be able to find his way back before it’s too late, just like a human child.

I also second all of the other suggestions. Perhaps your cat doesn’t like the litter you bought. I would at least put shredded newspaper on the top of the litter box.

And it’s not a good idea to feed a kitten cow’s milk, since they can’t digest it. (Goat’s milk is fine). Not sure if you are still giving him milk.

Show your husband this:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/11/08/funny-pictures-sry-for-teh-askident/

That’s funny!!!!

My one kitten took over two weeks until I was confident he was using the box ALL of the time. He did have the runs which I think contributed to the issue. I will second the tip on getting that special stuff to clean up wherever he/she had accidents. Ulysses kept revisiting the same spot over and over again until I finally took care of the odor (an odor I didn’t smell).