14 week old kitten starting to soil.

Lillylilly

Hi all,

Our 14 week old female kitten was trained when we got her at 8 weeks. She always used the litter tray with no issues. About 2 weeks week ago, she wee'd on our bed. The following night, she had pooed on it.

A few days later we started encouraging her to go to the loo outside, as she had started getting her vaccinations, and was running around the garden anyway. She needed to be brought out, and we made a hole in the ground, put her old litter tray beside it and poured her litter beside it to, trying to associate the litter with going the loo. A couple of times, we noticed she was going out by herself to go, which was great. Then I noticed that she had pooed and wee'd in the linen basket! We've since notice that she had peed on the bed, landing, bedroom carpet etc.

We are trying to keep her out of the bedroom, but she may have creeped in in the middle of the night- my boyf just noticed a wet feeling on the bed this morning.

What can we do to deter this? I'm off work for the next few days so ideally would like to have her perfectly trained to go outside by herself. Any ideas?

Also, I just noticed from a few other websites that cats choose to soil in the owner's bedrooms as it's the room that contains the strongest owner scent. The website said that they often soil to put their own scent on things, if there is a different smell in the room (they used an example of a 'true story' of a man cheating on a woman, and the cat used to soil his side of the bed to "get rid of the other woman's scent"). Now I know my partner isn't cheating on me, but the little one soils on his side of the bed, his side of the room and even has peed on his jeans and tracksuit bottoms (both on the floor!). He hasn't been hanging around any other animals (except for our 7 month old male kitten), hasn't been hanging around new people, hasn't changed job, aftershave etc. I'm just wondering why would she start to dislike his scent now, after living with us for a month and everything was fine?!

Sorry for being so long winded

JKM

Hi Lillylilly,

I don't know if I can offer any advice except to say that she should grow out of it. Our cat Lucy started to do the very same thing when she was about 4-5 months old. Never actually on our bed though, just over all my shoes and in the laundry basket. At the time I remember reading somthing about it being a comfort issue, maybe the cat feeling a bit insecure or something. If that's possible. Apparently the cat goes to the toilet in areas that have a heavy scent of you and your boyfriend. In a place that makes her feel comfortable.

Anyway we have 3 other cats (one of them is her brother) and we've never had this problem with any of them. What we did was put out extra litter trays and kept the bedroom door closed. Also, we gave her a bit of extra encouragement when she used the litter tray.

After a few weeks we chanced leaving the door open again and 7 months on havn't had any more problems.

Good Luck.

Rancid

Cats are sensitive creatures, sensitive to lots of things like smells, changes in the house, changes in the garden, everything, really.
My guess is that your kitten is reacting to something in her environment and that's causing the change in her toilet/marking habits.

You have a 7 month old male kitten...is he neutered yet?
If not, he's definitely at the maturing age and is giving off strong male-cat scents and probably acting like the dominant cat, also.
If this is the case the little kitten is claiming back *safe* area in the house for herself, places that smell like her and she feels secure in.

Did they ever share a litter tray? It might be a good idea to keep 2 separate trays indoors for them, so she will always have one to herself.
When you get this problem sorted out you can get back to getting her used to going in the garden.

Do other cats pass through your garden? She may have picked up their scent and it could cause her a bit of stress, and her natural reaction is to mark up her territory.
Although, pooing in inappropriate places might point more to there being a problem with the litter tray than anything else.
Even changing the type of cat litter you're using can cause problems if they don't like the smell, the dustiness, or whatever.

Maybe start out by watching how she interacts with your little male kitten, and if he's not neutered yet, get him to the vet very soon!

Oh...and cleaning up after her, use biological washing powder or liquid, it kills the scent better than anything else. Just don't use bleach it encourages them to go back to mark the same spot.

Dirty Frank

Bog her nose in it?

Lillylilly

Rancid wrote: »

Cats are sensitive creatures, sensitive to lots of things like smells, changes in the house, changes in the garden, everything, really.
My guess is that your kitten is reacting to something in her environment and that's causing the change in her toilet/marking habits.

You have a 7 month old male kitten...is he neutered yet?

Did they ever share a litter tray? It might be a good idea to keep 2 separate trays indoors for them, so she will always have one to herself.
When you get this problem sorted out you can get back to getting her used to going in the garden.

Do other cats pass through your garden? She may have picked up their scent and it could cause her a bit of stress, and her natural reaction is to mark up her territory.

The 7 month old, Bear is neutered. We got him done the week the little one, Squid, arrived- to be on the safe side

I started her off by using a smaller litter tray, then got them to use the same one. Maybe that wasn't the best idea! I think Bear made a little local friend so I wouldn't be surprised if it's been rambling around the back garden.

All day yesterday and this morning, I've been on it- everytime I see her sniffing around, I've been walking her out to the back garden, in the rain, to go to the loo. She HATES the rain and freaks out with wet feet so I made a big shelter over the wheelie bins. She started going under there, and I keep putting her under it, but three times, she's just rambled over to another little spot to go. I'm hoping that she'll do this alone by the end of the day. I'm dreading to think that she's been going secretly in the house during the night!!!

MsFifers

Dirty Frank wrote: »

Bog her nose in it?

No, don't. Doesn't work and it's mean.

Keep litter trays available and in easy access for the kitten. For a 2 cat household, its recommended you provide a tray each and a spare. Keep the trays clean at all times.

I know you want it to use outside, but it might have been intimidated by the another cat outside, so is using places that are easier for it to access. For me - I'd prefer to stick with the litter trays rather than having to clean beds, carpets etc because it doesn't like going outside! My cats won't go out on rainy days either.:)

Rancid

MsFifers wrote: »

No, don't. Doesn't work and it's mean.

Keep litter trays available and in easy access for the kitten. For a 2 cat household, its recommended you provide a tray each and a spare. Keep the trays clean at all times.

I know you want it to use outside, but it might have been intimidated by the another cat outside, so is using places that are easier for it to access. For me - I'd prefer to stick with the litter trays rather than having to clean beds, carpets etc because it doesn't like going outside! My cats won't go out on rainy days either.:)

I totally agree with you!