[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

thats my question. I got a new kitten and he keeps pooing in the living room. I sprayed him with a 50/50 water/vinegar solution cause I couldn't find my regular spray bottle.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', 't')hats my question. I got a new kitten and he keeps pooing in the living room. I sprayed him with a 50/50 water/vinegar solution cause I couldn't find my regular spray bottle.

[mindfarkk]

UE you might want to give a vet or the local animal shelter a call to double-check, but i'm pretty sure 50/50 vinegar applied externally will be fine. you might want to be careful not to get it in the little kit's eyes. vinegar is probably safer than some products they sell for kittens.

what's up? you training the wee creature to stay off the sofa?

mine used to climb up my pant leg. which is not so bad when you are wearing jeans but then they tried the same thing when i was in shorts.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

we just got a little orange tabby for xmas (kids named him tommy). he started out using his litter box but one day it got a little fuller than he liked (having two cats eating lots of rich cat food'll do that and he stopped.

he pooped in the living room (luckily on paper). when he did that I scolded him and took him and the paper to the litter box (that had been cleaned) put them in and did the opposite of bad cat.

just to be careful I put more paper down in the same spot and this is the third time he's done it. I use water spray bottles to train my cats (I'm anti-spanking/ nose rubbing) but can't figure out where I put it. so I sprayed his butt with the vinegar solution. he's been grounded to the bathroom for two hours.

not sure what else I can do except keep that up. any tips?

[mindfarkk]

clean any area where he has pooped/peed outside the litter box with straight vinegar, like white vinegar. i have found it REALLY effective, i've even had it clean the smell off my inside walls where a supercharged full-grown tomcat had marked his territory (he WAS a guest).

also, keep the litterbox clean, or get him his own. most cats will normally use the litterbox if it is clean and they don't "smell" their own stuff somewhere else (which says, effectively, "go here"!) male cats, as you know mark their territory by peeing so they are probably more likely to re-mark with urine if they smell it, but either way, it tells them that "this is the bathroom". some cats are much more sensitive to a dirty litterbox. mine will use it until she can't stand it (assuming i've been slacking) and then stand in front of me and cry until i clean it for her, but she won't go anywhere else, thank god.

IMO you can't train a cat the same way you train a dog, i.e. scolding vs. praise. they aren't pack animals so they have no intrinsic motivation to please you.

you can make a loud noise or spray him with the 50/50 to discourage him, IF YOU CATCH HIM IN THE ACT, not afterward.

you can reward him with something like a scrap of tuna, or a cat snack if he likes them well enough (mine don't care for commercial snacks but love tuna), again - i would do it anytime you see him enter the litterbox, not while he's using it, if you go that way.

cats respond better to rewards than punishment. you punish them, they tend to get pissy and contrary. of course, if you reward him for going into the box, he will then begin to associate the litterbox with food and enter it and then cry for tuna, so only use this as a last resort. you may have to stay on top of cleaning the litterbox double-time until he gets back in the habit.

i've never had to litterbox train a cat. i've heard some require it, but honestly i've never known a single kitten who didn't go right in and use it as if it were instinctive (must be a lot of clay deposits out there in the wild!).