Litter training slightly older cat

lmahoney79

Hey, we have pretty much taken on a male cat since he was left on our doorstep by it's Mum a year and half ago. We feed it and built it a little cat house outside to sleep in and got him neutered. Over the past 6 months or so he finally started to let me pet him and now i can pick him up for cuddles.
He comes into house most days to sleep in his basket but then goes outside at night time, he still loves being outdoors. But now the weather is colder, I would love to be able to keep him inside at night but he is not litter trained and goes mad if he thinks he cant get out (i think he still is essentially an outdoor cat)........I have tried leaving a litter tray down for him but just ignores it and cries to get out at the back door............anyone any suggestions as to how to get him to use tray instead of going outside all the time??

dvet

Hmmm, other people might have better ideas here, but these few things might be worth a try!

Firstly, if you can try to anticipate when he needs to go, you could try just repeatedly picking him up and sitting him in the tray before he does anything. He'll probably keep trying to resist you at the start though so you'll probably have to be fairly stubborn!

It would also back it up for him if you gave him a bit of a reward when he does go in the tray. It sounds like he's stressed out about the whole thing because he thinks it's 'wrong' to go in the house, so once he realises that you're ok with it, he might just relax and get used to it.

Also some cats are ultra fussy about the litter tray itself and won't use one unless everything is just to their liking. (this even happens with cats who are already litter trained!) For example, some cats will only go on the more gravelly type litter while some prefer the more pellety type. It helps to put the litter tray somewhere relatively quiet as cats are fairly private about their toileting. i.e. a back hall/a relatively unused corner or a quiet room. Also, some cats refuse to use a litter tray that's not totally clean, although since your guy never uses the tray that's probably not the problem!! You could also try having a couple of litter trays around - if you have an upstairs then at least one on each floor is a good idea.

Another thing is just to get him as 'unstressed' as possible - it's probably difficult for him to come around to the whole idea seeing as he used to be more or less feral. That's something that will probably improve on its own anyway as he gets used to being in the house, but i wouldn't be surprised if it took a while!

Lastly, if he's fairly old and you reckon he won't train well to litter trays, you could always just let him in and out to go to the toilet if you liked.
There actually is one good reason why this might be a good idea for your guy: cats who are stressed, indoors, or urinating less often than normal are predisposed to something called FLUTD (also called a 'blocked' cat). This is more common in indoor cats and tom cats in particular, and is something which is good to be aware of. Things to watch out for are urgency to go, straining to pee with nothing happening, or blood in his urine. Just something to keep an eye on as it's very serious if it does actually happen - if you do ever suspect it call the vet straight away and tell him you think your cat might be blocked. Meanwhile, encouraging him to drink plenty of water, and feeding him wet food rather than dry are good ideas as this decreases the risk

Hope this helps... the other knowleable boardies on here may be able to give you some better tips!