If this is the first time you welcome a cat into your home, you should familiarize yourself with the fact that this animal is wilder than it may seem at first and without a doubt, in addition to being endearing he is also an impeccable hunter.
Usually the use of the sandbox is not due to a learning process but to a maturation process. After 4 weeks of life, the kitten will begin to use the litter box instinctively since, due to its nature as a hunter, the cat needs to hide the smell of its feces in some way so that possible "prey" do not detect its presence in the litter box. zone.
Despite this, sometimes this process is not so simple, so in this article on our site we show you how to teach a cat to use the sandbox.
Preliminary considerations to take into account
The type of litter box and its location, as well as the litter used, are key to avoiding any problem in using the litter box. Let's see how we can make it easier for our cat to urinate and defecate in the right place:
- The litter box should be wide enough so that the cat can turn around in it, and it should be deep enough so that the litter does not spill out.
- If our cat is small, we must make sure that he can access the litter box without problems
- We should not place the litter box near the cat's food, but rather in a quiet place,where the cat can have privacy and that it is also always accessible to our pet.
- We must choose a suitable sand, those that are scented are not recommended. Find out more about the types of cat litter that exist.
- The location of the sandbox must be final.
- We must remove the faeces daily and change all the litter once a week, but we must not clean the litter box with cleaning products very strong, this will make the cat not want to approach.
My cat still doesn't use the litter box
Sometimes the cat's innate tendency to use the litter box does not manifest itself, but this should not worry us, we can solve it using simple tricks:
- Once we have located the litter box we must show it to our cat and remove the litter by hand.
- If the cat has urinated or defecated outside its litter box but somewhere that is acceptable and meets the same location conditions as its box, a practical and easy solution is to move the litter box.
- If the cat is going to evacuate or urinate in a place that is not the right one, we must take it gently and take it running to the litter box so that it associates that this is the place where it should do it.
- The first few days we must be less strict with the hygiene of the litter box so that the cat can easily detect the scent of its trace and return to its box.
- In the case of kittens that still do not go to the litter box alone, we must place them inside the box when they wake up and after meals, taking their paw gently and inviting them to dig.
Every time the cat uses the litter box we must use positive reinforcement to reward its successes and facilitate its habituation.
If the cat still doesn't use the litter box…
In the event that we have used the advice shown above and the cat still does not use the litter box even though it exceeds 4 weeks of age (at which time it begins to develop its instinct), the best thing to do is What we can do is go to the vet so that he can carry out a complete examination and thus rule out the presence of any disease.
We also invite you to continue browsing our site to discover why your cat does not use the litter box. Maybe that's how you find the answer.
