How to Relitter Train Your Cat
Monday, October 9th, 2006Has your cat stopped using the litter box? Understanding the reason is critical to correcting your cat’s behavior. Follow these instructions to help diagnose and resolve the problem.
Has your cat stopped using the litter box? Understanding the reason is critical to correcting your cat’s behavior. Follow these instructions to help diagnose and resolve the problem.
Cats urinate more frequently than they defecate so it is likely that after your cat has urinated, the litter box is now too dirty and repulsive to use again. He goes in the tub because it’s always clean there. Every time your cat soils the tub, you most likely clean it immediately, whereas the litter box may go an entire day before you get around to changing the litter. Given the choice of using a clean tub or dirty litter box, your fastidious cat will naturally use the cleaner area. If you are unable to change the litter box more frequently, get another litter box so at least one of them will be clean enough for him to use. He may continue to soil in the tub out of habit so either place another litter box in the tub, or discourage him from using it altogether by filling the tub with about 1/2 inch of water.
Urine is a fact of life.. it’s something that all people and pets produce. When a pet inappropriately urinates on rugs carpets or furnishings it can leave a very unpleasant odor that is hard to get rid of. This urine odor also stimulates the cat to urinate in that area again thus perpetuating the problem. Once the odor has been removed permanently the pet will no longer keep going back to that area.
You know right away when it’s happened - Fluffy has forgotten to use her litter box again. Here’s how to get that urine out of your couch or chair upholstery.
Assuming there is no medical problem with your cat, cats urinate where they are not supposed to for many reasons. Some common reasons are…
As cat owners, we need to make sure that the litter box meets our cat’s demands and with some cats this is not an easy task. Cats can be very fussy about their litter box, and if anything fails to meet their standards, some cats may stop using their box. Sometimes, this can happen after years of using the same box and the reasons are not always clear to us.
Some cat owners are familiar with this scene: the cat backs up toward a vertical surface, holds up its tail and sprays urine in several short bursts. That cat is not simply urinating outside his litter box, but rather marking territory with urine. The difference between regular urination and spraying is in the position and choice of location - when urinating, a cat uses a squatting position on horizontal surfaces.
Val over at Ferrets of New England put up some test footage of a couple of her ferrets. She’ll be posting more videos in the future, so for now you’ll have to be amused by ferrets in a tube! Sure, it’s not cats, but ferrets need litterboxes too!