I am not a cat fan, but when we found these flee ridden, wormy 4 months old kittens, we took them in anyway. Part of the reason I am against cats, is the smell of the litter, the accidents, the litter all over the house. So we decided to toilet train them. We stuck a turkey pan in the toilet, filled it with litter, then started cutting holes in it. We are at the point where there is just a small ring with litter left, and everything else is hole. The cats both use it reliably. They are now about a year old, both male, both neutered.
However, when it come to Number 2.... They both use the bath tub. One Youtube video suggested to fill the tub with an inch of water. Did that. Ended up with poop in the water filled tub from one cat, and poop on the door mat from the other. If I make the tub inaccessible, they will prefer the door mat. If I lock them in the bathroom for an hour (They poop between 7.30 and 8 am in the morning), they will use the sink, in front of the toilet or else. WHY if they hate the toilet so much that they won't poop into it, will they pee in it? That being said, I 'caught' one pooping in the toilet once... Is it the aluminum? Is it the litter? Might it be easy to pee but more acrobatically demanding to poop from a toilet seat? (The latter being my theory). Any ideas?
Hi Ute,
Well done on taking these kittens in and looking after them.
In terms of toileting habits, cats can be quite complicated. They love large litter trays, with soft litter substrate deep enough for them to dig comfortably and cover their poo (they would do this in the wild to cover their scent). They’re also very clean and like the litter trays scooped out daily.
I do appreciate that litter boxes can be unsightly and have a smell but there’s lots of different litter boxes out there that control the scent, that don’t look like litter boxes or some that even self clean. We’ve rated some of the best cat litter boxes here; https://cats.com/best-cat-litter-box
It’s common for cats to pee and poo in separate litter boxes (as they prefer to be super clean) so this makes sense as to why your cats are going in different places. It could also be that there’s not enough litter on the tray and they can’t cover their poo which they really like to do whenever possible.
I would recommend introducing some litter boxes if possible as I think this would rectify the problem.
I’ve included an article below that may help, even though your cats aren’t toileting on the bed, they are toileting in inappropriate places so this article might give some pointers.
https://cats.com/why-is-my-cat-peeing-on-the-bed
I hope this helps,
Aisling