The Litter Box Lowdown – How to Get your Cat to Use It
There are many considerations to be made when it comes to getting a new kitten in your house to use the litter box; while this, in and of itself, is trouble enough, there’s also the disconcerting experience of having a cat that has used a given litter box without problems for 4 years in your house suddenly choosing to relieve himself on the dining room carpet instead of using said litter box. There are many things to think about when buying, placing, filling and maintaining litter boxes for these all-too particular small animals—a list follows that should help you where you are struggling.
Make sure that you consider the cat’s natural habitat, and therefore what your cat is looking for in a place to do his business. Cats naturally want a few things; in fact they are psychologically programmed to want certain things while relieving themselves. One of these important things is the placement of the litter box. The physical situation is extremely important, for more reasons than one. Cats like to be able to see what is going on around them at this moment in the day, so that they can constantly be assessing danger; they are ready to flee at the slightest sound or movement that has any threat whatsoever in the eyes of the cat. This is one reason that cats do not like closed litter boxes. They do like to feel like they have a little privacy, but they do not want to be in a plastic cavern from which there is no means of escape.
Cats like to have an escape plan from wherever they are. This means that if the litter box is in a corner, with bookshelves in front of it, with a kind of kitty-access shelf that allows the cat to get from the room to the litter box, your cat is not going to like going into the litter box, and therefore, will not be using it too often. Cats need to feel safe and know that there is an emergency exit should a surprise attack befall them. Also for this reason, the litter box itself should not be too small. Your cat will want to have some privacy, and they don’t like relieving themselves in the exact same spot as they did a few hours prior. They want to know that the litter box is their own spot, but it should be large enough that they can comfortably choose a slightly different location each time they visit the litter box.
Cats do not like unnatural odors. While you may be tempted to choose a scented kitty litter in an effort to control odor, your cat is not likely to feel the same way. Kitty litter should look and feel like sand; it should also smell like it. ‘Garden breeze’ does not smell like it. When you wash the litter box, you should not use industrial cleaners or bleach cleaners in an effort to get it super clean; the residual odor from this type of cleaner will be a deterrent for your cat when she comes back to her litter box. The best way to control unpleasant odors is to keep the litter box clean on a regular basis, scooping and raking daily and replacing kitty litter entirely once a week. Non-clumping litters should be changed much more often, even daily.
If you’ve followed some of these ideas and your cat has been using your litter box for years and suddenly decides he or she no longer wants to use that litter box, don’t be inclined to think that your cat is just being shifty. Instead, look for the culprit. Cat behaviorists say there is always a reason for which a cat decides to stop visiting their litter box. Possible culprits might be within your realm of control (Does the litter need to be changed? Do you need to put up a dog gate so that your dog can not disturb, i.e. frighten your cat to death while he’s in the litter box? Have you recently switched kitty litters or changed your habits nearby the litter box?). Sometimes, the culprit is outside of your control and unknown.
Some possible culprits are sudden noises, for example if it’s next to a hot water heater that suddenly kicks in, frightening the cat or next to a freezer that drops ice into the ice bucket every so often. These events can shake a cat up enough to result in him being unwilling to even go near the litter box again. The best way to avoid this becoming a problem in your house is to have a litter box on each level or on each end of your house. That way, should something traumatic happen in one, he can use the other litter box until you notice that he’s no longer using the first one, at which point you should move it and let your cat get readjusted to it.