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How to Train a Kitten on Litter Box Use
Unlike the often frustrating ordeal of house training dogs, litter box training is not hard because cats are instinctively programmed to bury their waste.
It is recommended that you confine your new kitten to a single room for at least the first week after you bring it home to enable it to adjust to you and its new surroundings. It will also make conducting the litter box training much easier while the kitten is in a small area.
If you allow the kitten immediate access to the entire house, it will likely become frightened by too much space and activity and spend most of its time hiding. Consequently, you will spend your time finding it and will not be able to monitor when and where it is going to the bathroom. Additionally, if the kitten is consumed with fear, it will be incapable of learning.
Setting Up the Room and Starting the Training
Arrange the kitten’s room to have food and water, and the other side contains the litter box. It is essential not to have them too close to each other because, just as you would not want to have to eat sitting beside your toilet, neither does your cat.
Bring the kitten into the room and place it first with the food and water. Then allow it to investigate the space independently, and eventually, it will come to the litter box. If you’re lucky, it’ll enter the box, immediately begin scratching, and may even go to its potty. If this is the case, no more training will be required.
If not, wait until the kitten has finished exploring and seems calm and comfortable with the room. Then, sit by the box and coax it over to it by shaking a toy or dangling a string to get its attention. When it arrives, spend a few minutes playing with it.
Please pick it up gently, not abruptly, and put it down several times during the play, associating the action as part of the play. Then pick it up, put it in the box, and take your hands away. Never try to force it to stay in the box by holding it there. Maybe it’ll leap out at you. This portion of the training is only to acclimate the kitten to being in the box.
Continue to play, and then try putting the toy or string into the box so that the kitten jumps into the box to get it. Again if you are lucky, it will begin scratching in the litter as it plays with the toy and may go to the bathroom. If not, don’t worry. It will come soon enough. Next, take the kitty to its food and water and encourage it to eat and drink. After all of the play, it should at least be thirsty.
Once it has drunk some water and/or eaten some food, gently put it in the box again. If it still doesn’t go, don’t be discouraged. It won’t be long until instinct takes over. If the kitten settles down for a nap, put it into the box as soon as it wakes up because it will need to go by then.
When an Accident Occurs
If there is an accident, never yell or rush toward the kitten to try to put it in the box before it finishes because this will only scare it. Instead, take an unscented tissue or toilet paper, soak it in the urine, take it and any feces, and put it all in the box. Then calmly put the kitten in the box so it can smell the waste. The kitten will probably start to bury it, and your job is done.
Ensure that the accident location is completely cleaned with an odorless pet cleaning solution. If the kitten continues to go in the same spot, move the box there because that is where it feels comfortable going, and leave it there until the kitten uses the box regularly. If it still does not use the box, try a different type of litter because it may be that the smell or the texture of the trash is undesirable to the kitten.
Moving the Litter Box
Once the kitten is litter box trained, you can move the box to a more suitable place, indicating the new place, then tape a piece of tin foil over the previous region to prevent it from going where the box was.
When selecting a permanent location, ensure that it is constantly accessible and is not located in a room with a closed door. Additionally, keep it away from the dining area and away from areas with a lot of activity or commotion where it can be disturbed or scared away.
Assume the kitty ceases to use the box once it is relocated. In that case, chances are the new location is, for whatever reason, unacceptable to the kitten, so try different spots until the kitten is satisfied with the location. If the kitten continues to go in a specific place other than the box, it would be best to move the box there, and your problem will be solved.
