Help with Cat Flap & Tolietering Outside

[donna6]

Hi All

I have a 2 year old female cat named Lola. I have had her now for 3months. About month ago I installed an cat flap, and Lola has mastered how to 'get back' inside house using cat flap, however she has not grasped how to 'escape' to outside world using cat flap. She sits at door and looks through cat flap, and if I open cat flap door she will disappear through it. But am tired of doing this, and I don't understand why she will not go through cat flap on her own accord, what is stopping her from doing this? She does not take cat treats, so I tried playing with her favourite toys around cat flap so she can get used to it especially smell and bleeping sound. This has worked, as I said before she will use cat flap to get back inside, but not other way around for some strange reason
Also, am looking for advice on how I can get Lola to do the toilet outside? I made mistake of every time she went into her litter tray and would pick her up and put her outside in hope she would do her pee/poo outside somewhere. this method failed, as she will run back in and dive into her litter tray

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

many thanks, Donna

[Jacks]

Firstly well done for getting Lola to use the cat flap at all - and to be honest, in the most useful way. It doesn't take a moment to open the door and let her out, but waiting around for her to come back in - now that would be a pain! As you may have guessed, mine universally don't get it when it comes to coming back in...

As for toileting outside - can't be done. You cannot persuade a cat, with treats or deprivation, to toilet outside if they don't want to. If a cat feels that outside is THEIR territory, and they are confident and happy with allowing their markers to be smelled by any other passing felines, they will go outside. If they don't feel this, they will go inside. I have four girls and a boy - the boy goes outside unless he feels threatened by another new cat in his territory - during this time he went indoors and didn't resume going out until the other male had moved on... The girls will come back inside to go to the toilet, even when they're playing out...

Keep the tray inside and monitor the behaviour. If and when she's ready she will spontaneously go outside if she's there, rather than come home to go. But she's made it clear, by rushing in, that at the moment this is not the case and you'll get inappropriate weeing in the house if you remove the litter tray all together.

[andrea8411]

I have just trained my cat to use the cat flap and yes for a while she would use it to come inside but would wait for me to open the door to let her out, I decided to stop opening the door for her if she wanted to go out badly enough she would figure it out, after about 5 hours out she went all by herself and now comes and goes as she pleases, cats will allow you to open doors for them at anytime at any age.
While she was using the litter tray in the house, I sprinkled it around the garden behind bushes etc so she could smell her own scent outside, for a while she would be outside for ages come straight back in and use the tray, so one day I put the litter tray outside near to the cat flap, left it there for a couple of days still sprinkling it around the garden then removed it totally never to be used again and no accidents in the house ever.
Good luck

[elastu]

Good luck with the cat flap training, However, it is always advisable to provide a litter tray even if it is not used much In fact it is one of Cats Protections conditions when adopting a cat. If the cat has a problem it will used the tray ot at least try to. If you can keep an eye on what your cat is passing, you can spot many problems, e.g. cystitis is very common in cats and needs urgent Veterinary treatment. It is shown up if the cat uses or tries to use the tray frequently and/or passes blood, I have known cats with other serious problems and it was only the fact that a litter tray was available 24/7 that the symptoms were noticed. Something you would never know if you didn’t have a tray. Ideally one litter tray per cat + 1 extra is the best option in multi cat households.
Some time ago it was necessary to have Trudie a long term CP cat PTS due to bowel cancer, I would like to think that Trudie's untimely death has not been in vain as a lesson can be learnt from it and that is the reason why everyone should always provide a litter tray (apart from the litter tray evidence there was no reason to suspect Trudie had a problem, she looked so well) no matter how old the cat and irrespective of the fact that it may go out.