Potty Training a Cat

PG24

PG24

<Pride> I'm my wildest fantasy
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Go ahead and get out le giggles.

So, a bit of a backstory. I have two cats of both gender, both of which are tabbies. The male's name is Snow and the female's is Ice. The problem is not with Snow, who I've had for around five years and uses the litter box perfectly. The problem instead is with Ice, who is a nightmare when it comes to using the litter box. I've had her for around a year now and have been unsuccessful at making her use the box. It's not that she hasn't used it, it's just that she only uses it when I put her in there. The other times, well ... she ends up making me pretty angry by pissing all over my floor (all of my floor is hardwood :D), furniture, clothes, etc. Thankfully when she poops, it's in the shower (thankfully lol???). Here's the damage she's caused so far:
  • Two sets of bed sheets. Even the shams didn't escape this tragedy in one such accident. >_>
  • Some clothes I had laying out.
  • A couch cushion.
  • A mat I had on the floor.
  • My dog's bed.
  • One of my favorite jackets. Thank god it's warmer now.
I might be forgetting a few accounts, but I don't really think that matters. The point is that I need to get her trained to the litter box quick. I've tried the steps I used on my first cat, which is putting him in the box and giving him a treat if he succeeds, but that method just hasn't worked. I'm really desperate because if the problem isn't fixed soon, I'm just going to be spending more money and my entire apartment will start smelling like cat piss (I live in a loft which doesn't help at all).

A bit of important information about the cat: She gave birth to a litter of kittens recently last month. The problems began long before the kittens were born, but her pregnancy might have made things a tad worse. I had her spayed after the pregnancy as well as got her a health check that went by with flying colors.

TL;DR: What are some good ways to train a cat to use the litter box?
 
With my cats, when they went on the floor we scolded them and held them up to it so they were forced to smell it. So eventually they couldn't stand the smell and went to the litter box. (there was a bit of forcing them to stay in, but they got the hang of it)

Sometimes one of them still goes on the floor, but that's because she refuses to use the box if it is dirty or if there isn't enough litter in it.

EDIT: Make sure your cat knows where the box is, one time when we had guests over, my dad put a painting in front of the box to hide it from sight (it was dirty and we hadn't been able to get litter at the time), the cats went crazy. And you can guess what happened next. (luckily it was after our guests left)
 
With most female cats, you only would need to show them to the 'box and they are fine. This is strange :/

OMG TDL has cats lolololol

Brave Vesperia pretty much has nailed it on the button.
 
As we had some problems with one cat, too, here are some tips we followed: (we did them all at once, so I don't know which one was the one that worked at the end)
- the litter box has to be clean- always, some cats hate dirty litter boxes, so make sure it's being cleaned up once a day
- the litter(didn't work with our cat, but with a friends kittens): chose another litter, if yours smells very strongly, some cats wil only want to use the litter they used to use first in their life or just don't like strong smells
- try to put the litter box in a place the cat often goes to, it should be a quiet room, but make sure it's one the cat frequents. We just put the cat food in the same room as the litter.
- you'll probably have to watch your cat for some time, to catch her in the act of doing it and right when she starts urinating, put her in the box.

I wonder... How do your cats get along? Are they very territorial? It could be that they don't want to use the same litterbox. The woman that sold us our cat had three male cats that would not use the same litterbox and constantly mark their territory around her house. She ended up buying three litter boxes, so every cat had their own. That solved the problem. I don't know if that'd work out for you, but maybe you could separate the cats for a weekend and see if that's the problem? maybe a friend could watch the potty trained one and you could get a brand new litterbox and new litter(to eradicate all the smell of the other cat) for the other one and see if it helps? I'm a little confused your cat is female, though, I've never really heard of any problems with female cats regarding littering.
Good luck with your cat, I hope something will work out for you.
 
She might to prefer going outside. I know it's just one of my cats, but she actually prefers going outside kind of like a dog (kind of weird lol)...She uses the litter box occasionally too so I guess it depends. I'm not sure how you would be able to know when she would want to go out but that's an option. My kitten a little after he was born didn't get the concept of the litter box so the mother cat taught him to use it so that helped as well. Interesting that it's a mother that doesn't want to use it...

dmaster out.
 
Yeah usually you can just show the female cats where the box is and they know. Odd having the female cats NOT using it lol.
 
I've had cats most of my life, so here are a few things that have helped me with them:

- The proximity of the food to the litter box. Make sure the cat can always see the litter box on it's trips around the place. Their own area or room is ideal (for my cats it is in a small room next to the kitchen with the washer/dryer in it) Familiarity is key with cats.
- If she messes, stick her mess in the litter box. Maybe stick her in with it to show her where it belongs. Cats are real babies sometimes, they need to be shown where things go or they'll just do whatever (might be similar to what you already tried, so might not help any).
- My older cat likes to go outside, so we let him out. Thankfully he always comes back, but it's not an option for everyone as some prefer to keep them indoors.
- As stated before, make sure to use the pooper scooper and keep the litter clean or they will mess on the floor or somewhere else.
- Close as many doors as you can in the house around the common favorite messing places of your cat. If you sense a pattern, try to block off the area or put a stop to her going there. I had a cat that used to mess in my parent's room all the time and in the same spot, it only stopped once the doors got shut regularly.

That's all I can think of right now. Might remember more later.
 
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