Litterbox Training Your Kitten

There are different ways you can set yourself and your kitten up for success when attempting to litterbox train it. The first things you need to be aware of are:

• Always keep the litterbox clean, cats don’t like to go in dirty places.
• Don’t let kitty smell the odor of the litterbox, either. Use strong odor-less or odor-eliminating litter.
• Cats instinctively want to bury their urine and poop, so you have that on your side.
• Get your kitten on scheduled feedings so you can be there when you expect it to need to go, and help it find the litterbox and use it.
• Always reward your kitten for doing the right thing, never punish.

If your kitten is on scheduled feedings, he will want to go to the bathroom between 5-25 minutes later after his food has digested. It’s good to have a play session and when you see signs that your kitty needs to go, help him to the litterbox. Or, end the session around the recommended amount of time and show your kitten the litterbox in the hopes that he will use it. You don’t necessarily have to wait until you see the signs.

You can help your kitten along by pushing into the clean litter yourself so it realizes it’s supposed to push it around too, and cover what it leaves behind in there!

Oh, and remember…

• Don’t stare at your kitten waiting for it to go, that’s just rude.
• Never use the litterbox as punishment, otherwise it is associated negatively to your kitten.
• Make sure the cat box is relative to the size of the cat. Kitten = small box, Full grown cat = much bigger than a kitten’s box. If you find poop on the outside of the box, get a closed in box or realize you may have a size issue.
• Keep the kitty bathroom away from the kitty play area, sleep area and eating area. Cats are clean!
• Don’t hold back with the boxes, if you feel your kitty needs more of them in more places, put them there! Better your carpet safe than sorry, right?

Tags: kitten, litter box, litterbox, training