Bad litter tray habits - help needed!

Hi guys. Posted a few pictures of Mylo on here a while back when I got him - he is doing really well, but unfortunately his toilet habits are not developing with him.... I would say that 9 out of 10 times when going number 2, he either stands on it and gets it all over his back paws, or gets it all over the fur on his backside... or both! He is literally in the bath 2 times a day. He used to do it on occasion when I got him, but now it is an every day occurrence. I have watched him, and he seems to have this obsessive compulsive thing, where he needs to pace round in circles after going to the toilet, with his front feet scraping the sides of his tray, and his back feet walking around in the litter. I am going to buy litter kwitter toilet training kit today as its the only thing I can think of that will help, unless any of you have any ideas... Is this normal behavior?

We had a terrible time with Benji in the beginning! He also always walked straight through it, or even walked through Storm's right after he had been! He has grown out of it though and now buries it under the equivalent of Mount Everest of sand!

Ditto. My three - well, only two of them Leo was always a good boy - would do similar but over time and tuning of food for more solid outcomes :) worked. They are almost fully accident free now, and they'll be 9 months old next week. Aww.

Be patient, and get used to clearing up.

Well, this is why I am concerned. Mylo is 8 months now. And instead of getting better, he is definitely getting worse. His outcomes are always solid too! I am very patient with him, but bathing him twice a day can't be normal, and when he does it and I am not in the house I can just imagine him trotting all over the house, over my bed, on the kitchen worktops.... with his messy paws. I think Litter kwitter may be my only hope, fingers crossed....

Have you tried a larger tray? Perhaps Mylo needs plenty of space to tread about in after 'going', so if the tray is bigger he'll have less chance of treading in his doings. Even try two large trays - he might 'go' in one, and tread about in the other. One of my trays is a big plastic storage box, with low sides, I think it's intended to go under a bed. There's plenty of room for them to ferret around in it. As for the Litter Kwitter, there's another thread about that which shows that it takes a lot of careful training, so you still need an interim measure.

Agree with Howlinbob, one of mine stands with his front feet up on the side of the tray to go,both pee & poo,he then spends the next 15 minutes scrapping around the edge & digging through to Australia,although he was never as bad as your boy he did occasionaly have accidents & leave his paw autographs across the floor,when we needed to replace one of the trays we went for one of the storage containers,the choice of size is up to you but we went for one that is longer than our biggest litter tray & have had no problems since,luckily the one that did have the slight problem normally poos in that one now anyway but have noticed that if he uses one of the other trays he seems to be more aware of not stepping in it.....

Just bought Litter Kwitter. He has the largest cat tray I could find - didn't think of using underbed storage boxes, they are far bigger and definitely a good back up plan if toilet training does not go to plan. Few up to date pictures too... Attachment 3442Attachment 3443Attachment 3444Attachment 3445Attachment 3446

He looks a very handsome lad bless him,another thought have you only got the one tray,might be better off with another one alongside,I have one cat that pees in one & then moves into another to poo,could be if he has used it to pee in he might be trying to avoid that area & ending up making matters worse,I have five cats & six trays round & about but always in pairs......

Buddy was toilet trained until my son's mate didn't realise that we were being serious about the cat using the loo and left the loo seat down; poor cat did poop on the lid but refused to have anything to do with the toilet since so we went back to litter boxes. I bought 2 underbed storage boxes from Poundland and he has one upstairs and one down. Buddy is 7 and still has the odd time that he tramples about in his own mess :( We recently put a sandpit in the outdoor run and Buddy totally loves it; digging away to his hearts content. I did notice that there was a lack of number 2's in the litter boxes and found that he has been using the sandpit instead. Could be that its deeper, or that he prefers sand. I'm going to try putting sand in one of his boxes to see if it makes a difference.

Good luck with the Litter Kwitter, but please don't think that it will be an overnight cure, and it can be just as messy as litterboxes, if not worse to start with. Oh and it can be a bit embarrasing if you get up in the night and forget its there :O (come on who else has done that? I know I'm not alone)

I had the biggest litter box I could find and Samantha would back into the corner and pee over the edge, I've always laid down newspaper larger then the litter box underneath just for this occurrence.

I have a cat (non-MC) that refuses to poo anywhere but next to the tray. My MC breeder said one of her girls do the exact same thing. No matter how many trays you put down get just goes next to them. Oh and none of my two cover ANYTHING. I'm hoping my 3rd cat (MC) has good litter manners. I can't wait until I've got my own house, with a cat run, with an outdoor toilet.

Our most beloved Bob, the howling goblin, didn't have a clue what a litter tray was and never learned in the 10 years he was with us. He was a black Persian who we scooped up off the street in a dreadful state, so I've no idea what his early life was like or why he never got the idea from his mother. He didn't dig or cover up - he'd just 'go' on any flat surface and walk away. If I could out-manoeuvre him so that he had to 'go' in the garden, he would just leave his deposit on the patio. Still, he was our very best friend and we adored him beyond anything. But I still get a whiff of him in the corner of the kitchen, even now, after hundreds of scrubbings, Urine-off, redecorating.....*sigh* !

Dakota also has problems "hitting the target". :nod:

I've found that if I scoop his boxes (he has 2) at least twice a day (am/pm), make sure that the box is over half full with litter, he seems to do better. When I'm out of town and hubby takes over, Dakota will make a mess if the routine is not followed. Don't know why, but he loves to dig at everything (including litter).
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Well, some of the habits described really put Mylo's problems into perspective... I shall persevere with the Litter Kwitter and see how it goes. Fingers crossed

Its worth persevering, I have to admit it was great not having to worry about litter etc. I'm going to start again once the kids go back to school and hopefully the house will be a bit quieter and the downstairs loo can be reclaimed for cats only :)

Please keep us posted how your getting on. Peter Galbavy has a thread about the Litter Kwitter running so maybe you could add your experiences to that one as well x

I am not kidding...have never had a problem with the kittens use of the litter tray until I read this thread.

Yesterday, twice Poif stood in the very corner of the litter tray and crapped on the floor!! How and why has this happened?!

Could someone maybe write a thread about how especially clean their cat is? And maybe add in that they scoop the crappy litter out after themselves too...

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Originally Posted by Bethy_boo

I am not kidding...have never had a problem with the kittens use of the litter tray until I read this thread.

Yesterday, twice Poif stood in the very corner of the litter tray and crapped on the floor!! How and why has this happened?!

Could someone maybe write a thread about how especially clean their cat is? And maybe add in that they scoop the crappy litter out after themselves too...

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The only time when we have had "overhang" problems was once when we used a litter tray with the lower sides & a couple of times when hubby has been over enthusiastic
with the filling of the deeper ones & folled them nearly to the top.....
We have one boy who is very fussy that everything in the tray is covered & China RIP would never cover her poo so Bruce would go behind her & do it for her muttering away all the time he was doing it,then if he saw you watching he would come & tell you all about it as well,since poor China has left us he has a lot more time to call his own but you still see him go & check the trays after someone has been,you can even be right behind him with shovel but still has to be checked,but sorry Bethy_boo can't post that we are the first to have trained any one of ours to clean out the tray afterwards,haven't even been able to train them to "shit"in the tray you have just cleaned before the bag is knotted & thrown,come on Bruce buck your ideas up,you know where the bags & shovel are now rub the top of bag between your paws to start opening it.....x

MC Elvis had a few toilet issues when he was younger but all was resolved when I got him a giant storage container
that holds an entire 40Lb bag of litter. Him having enough room to do his business without being cramped
made all the difference... No more overhang misses, No more Klingons.

So far so good - he wasn't pleased by the tiny size and awkwardness for the first 2 days (it was on the floor in the bathroom). I moved it up onto the loo yesterday and it has been used several times with 100% success. No cling on's and no mess on his paws. Already this is way better than using a litter tray!

We already have have what I thought was a substantial litter tray - but our 10 month male has started in the last two moths to deposit a random poo either next to his litter tray or even elsewhere around the house.

It seems that the majority of poo remains in the tray, but possibly a "klingon" is falling off.

Has anyone tried trimming the cat's hair around the hind quarters to prevent a "klingon" (love the klingon terminology!!).

Cheers

Not had to do it with my MC but when I had Felix my CH long haired kitten I had to clip his rear end or the Klingons started to smell badly after a few hours. Keep up the good work with the Toilet training - we're back to basics on that xx

OK, so we are now 5 weeks in to using litter kwitter. There have been some highs, and some lows, which I will explain. Basically he took to it very fast, within 2 days he seemed completely at home using it. After 2 weeks (maybe I was jumping the gun slightly) I moved onto the orange stage with the hole in the middle of the tray. This really confused him, but with some guidance from me he got the hang of it. Or so I thought. Since starting to use the orange tray, I have been waking up to find that that he has gone number 2 on the floor. Not every time, but a lot of the time. Luckily for me, the bathroom floor is tiled and so very easy to clean, and he seems to know that the bathroom, at least, is the correct place to go, and not in any other room. I thought at first that he was doing it because he will pee first, and then not want to use his soiled litter. But more recently, he has become very good at peeing, gets it through the hole every time, so the litter is always clean and dry. But he still insists on crapping on the floor, just in front of the toilet.

When I am lucky enough to be awake when he needs to go, I can keep an eye on him. He will take a pee, scratch around a bit, squat down as if to go, then suddenly change his mind and jump down onto the floor. I just have to keep putting him back up until he eventually goes where he is supposed to. So I KNOW he can do it. And now, every time he pees its through the hole and so the litter is always fresh, I have no idea why he would think the floor is a better idea!

If anyone has any experience or ideas please let me know!

Mark

Back to the red tray then... at least to see if that helps. With the LK the "secret" seems to be take is very slowly, even if your cat(s) appear to "get it". They need to build habits over a very long time. Mine are not going to the green stage until some time in October - two months on orange or so.

Latest update - I gave litter kwitter up. It became obvious that he had learned what to do, but would only ever use it when prompted (which meant I had to be there...). The rest of the time he just used the bath. So, to avoid stressing him and myself out any more, he has his litter tray back. Amazingly during this time he seems to have learned not to stand in his mess any more - problem solved :)

Sorry to hear the LK didn't work for you, but it's wonderful he isn't messy anymore!

When our Whiskey turned 6 months old we closed the door to the room with his litter box in it and installed a pet-door for access. We put the flap on and showed him to go in & out by pushing on the flap. He knows how to use the flap when a treat or toy is on the otherside. When it comes to doing his business in the morning he goes in, does his business & comes out. Sometime later the same day he sits in front of the door meowing because he can't figure out how to get to his litter box. Again put a treat or toy on the otherside, no worries. When it comes to doing business in there, forget it. So the door now remains open. Can't fix stupid.

Whiskey is also another one that gets his poo all over the place. When he's in his litter box we always hear a lot of banging and rattling of the lid. He'll be in there banging around forever. We think he's building sandcastles in his litter box. We expect to see an exquisite sculpture afterwards, but find nothing but his uncovered poo in there. How it remains uncovered after all the digging he does is another Houdini mystery.

Well, my experiences are slightly ahead of yours Mark but not by much. The real key is still patience. I thought we had all got to the end of the green stage by Xmas and so removed the LK altogether and went for the toilet seat. One of my "little angels" (Dicky) got it straight away and had zero problems. Bertie got the idea but was a little hesitant and Leo, well Leo. Hmm. We are now back on the green stage and a few instances of poo in the bath from both Bertie and leo. I think it's the absence of any litter for Leo that confuses him and bertie is just being pain.

I am going to continue with green and even more slowly than before reduce the amount of litter around the edge until Leo is OK. He got the idea of the cat flap last after a few weeks, so he will get there the little dear.

I should also say that my three boys would prefer me to be around when they do go to the loo, but when left alone in the house during the day they will proceed to fill the toilet up quite happily on their own. Yummy.

The thing is, I got the impression it was stressing him out. He COULD do it, but never really seemed happy about the idea. My house is a happier place now that I don't have to worry about coming home, or waking up, to find the bath smeared and full of crap... I'm pretty sure he loves scratching around for minutes on end in his tray anyway. Just like with anything I think some cats will take to it and not find it a big issue, whereas some will be stubborn and rebel forever!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarkJDMcQuade

Latest update - I gave litter kwitter up.

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No doubt the sensible thing to do. Let cats be cats and scratch in the tray to their hearts' desire. Mine do... the space around the trays often looks like beach front property. But that is why I have a broom and dust pan. :winkwink:

ah yes, MC-puberty (growin' too big for the box). We had a heckuva time with Dakota. As I recall, that's when the "poo-skids" started too! We weren't very successful in keeping the britches trimmed either -- used the vet a couple of times.

Like others, we got bigger boxes and keep them very clean. If the box has been used (by brother Blue, who thinks it's a big sandbox to play in), Dakota seems to pace & circle more. We also keep wipes handy in case there are any skids left on the side of the box. We've found that the cleaner and larger the box, the less mess he makes. Of course, some of the problem seems to be growing pains - as now that he's 5, we hardly have any problems (fingers crossed). The digging and circling has never stopped - we don't call him "Diggin' McSquiggin" for nothing.

Good luck!:nod:

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