Litter training 10 year old female

[algorlex17]

My 10 year old female cat turned up on our doorstep 8 years ago in a pretty stressed state, practically bald from a flea allergy. She settled quickly and is a delightful little thing who rules the roost. She comes and goes as she pleases during the day and is kept in at night due to her love of gifting live mice! We are hoping to move in the next few weeks and she will obviously have to be kept in for a couple of weeks to get used to her new home and area so the issue of the litterbox has come up. She has never used a litterbox while with us and despite my best attempts things are not going well. We have two trays, one with litter and one with garden soil as that is what she is used to, she will happily wee in our garden but has always pooed elsewhere (sorry neighbours)
I have scooped up soil where she has peed and put it in her soil tray but this has not helped. Should I just refuse to let her out until she eventually poos in her tray? I dont want to upset and stress her too much and am conscious that her not peeing could lead to a UTI
All advice very much appreciated! X

[Ruth B]

Is she actually using either of the trays inside or is she still going out for both pee and poo. If she is using it i think she will come around and use it for solids when she has no other option. Unfortunately there is also a chance that she will decide that another corner of a room is where she wants to go, so you might have to work with her a bit when it comes to placing the litter trays.

At the start of this year I adopted my Mothers old cat when my Mother had to move in to a nursing home, I knew i would have to keep her in for a month or so, and like yours she never used a litter tray, choosing to go out side and use the garden even when there was snow on the ground. i was prepared to try anything to help her, including buying bags of compost or topsoil if that is what she would use. After a two hour trip in the car I let her out of the carrier and put down a litter tray filled with the Catsan Clumping litter I used for my own cats. It's a nice fine grained clay based litter, she went to the tray and started digging like mad, scattering litter everywhere, then sat down and happily used it. My Mother had insisted on getting the wood pellet litter that she had happily used as kittens, but she didn't like it as she got older and it isn't really suited to a cat that wants to dig. For the few months we had her (my Mother died about 4 months after moving into the nursing home, and Stroppy, her cat, followed her after a few more months) she never didn't use the tray, there were a few times when she missed it, but that was just accidental. Sometimes you just need to find the right litter and the right tray for the cat.

If all else fails, newspaper and puppy pads can go a long way to helping keep the place clean until she can go outside, the main thing is to not tell her off and stress her out.

[Mollycat]

I would think when needs must she will use a tray and offering a choice, maybe one just of sand, one soil, one fine grit and so on will give you the best chance. Bottom line is cats are clean and want to go where they can bury it, so they will actively look for something suitable to go in rather than use the floor. Maybe when you first move keep her in one room with various trays to minimise the chance of her finding a corner she likes that has no tray in it.

[algorlex17]

Thank you both for the advice. She is not using her litter trays at all, one is wood pellets, the other soil so I will try some extra trays with clay litter and also some sand - she is a digger so might prefer these. I will report back!

[lilynmitz]

I suspect she is thoroughly confused if you are still letting her out and, to her mind, making her use a tray when she has a perfectly good toilet outside. This is the equivalent to locking the door to the loo and she can't probably understand why she's expected to cross her legs until you finally open the door for her.

However, once you've moved, psychologically new rules will apply, and given that as far as she's aware the new outdoor toilet doesn't exist, she will probably look for the next best alternative and use the tray.

I've never understood why any cat would want to pee in a pile of twigs. It seems thoroughly unnatural to me. Fine grained or gritty litters are much more what they would be used to in the great outdoors. Personally I love Cats Best or Worlds Best, which are great clumping litters that are easy to clean out and good at controlling smell (much better than catsan and clay litters in that regard). My various cats over the years have always been really happy with them. My current laddie even comes in to use the tray and then goes back into the garden! You can make the litter depth quite deep, if your puss is a "digger", as all you have to clean out is the clumped bit, so fairly cost effective. (I just wipe down the soiled bits daily, then let the levels gradually run down and give them a full clean out every 2-3 weeks).

I'm not sure I would bother forcing her to use the trays until after you've moved, although leaving them around for her to get used to seeing them is a good idea. Desperation will soon make her use the trays once you've moved!