When I was a kid, we received a kitten to raise from our neighbors. We already had a 3 year old dog. My mother was emphatic that there would be no litter box; she believed the kitten would learn from the dog. And that is what happen after a few mishaps and scoldings. Recently, I shared this story with a friend upon him finding an abandon kitten. He currently has a 4 year old dog and has decided to let the kitten out with the dog to encourage “potty time”. He purchased no litter box. The kitten has had a few accident’s but is now purring/meowing at the sliding glass door when it wants to go outside to relieve himself.
A few questions: Would a cat go along with this if there was no dog showing “the way”. If so, why is it expected for a dog to be trained to go outside to relieve himself, but not a cat? Why do cat owners get sucked into this fallacy that a cat needs to go potty indoors in a litter box or worse…in the human’s toilet?!
Somebody please bring some clarification to this perplexing situation?
The trick isn’t training the cat to go outside to eliminate. They can always find a spot. They especially like flower beds. So, if the owner wants their flower beds to smell like urine and feces, that’ll work out just fine.
The trick is to train the cat to let you know when it needs to go outside. Your kitty learned how and this was a great solution to that problem. Oh, by the way, the dog probably ate the cat poop when your mom wasn’t looking. Dogs do that; scavenging is kind of what they’re known for.
All joking aside, many people do not allow their cats to roam outdoors because of the risk it poses to their cats. Thus, an indoor litterbox and/or toilet training are most usual solutions.
The reason cats readily learn to use a litter box is that they understandably already want to find a semi-remote spot, away from their normal eating and sleeping area to dispose of their waste.
If we didn’t provide a box to an indoor cat, they would find a plant or a sink, or something else that roughly met their criteria. If they could, they would go outside. If left with no other options, they have to go somewhere, they will go to a corner of the room - whatever it takes. They keep all their options open.
Some cats can be taught to use a human toilet by starting out with a hanging litter box inside the toilet bowl, and gradually using less and less litter until finally just the hanging box is there, and then eventually removing the box. Some cats will continue using the toilet after the entire apparatus is removed. (if they could learn to flush that would be more impressive, but an auto-flushing toilet would solve that problem)
You can train a cat to go outside just like you can train a dog, you don’t need a dog to ‘show it the way’, just like you don’t need an already trained dog to train a new puppy. Just be consistent, accept there will be a few mistakes, and they’ll learn after a few weeks.
I would be a bit concerned with the method you use, cats are not the same as dogs, and have much different digestive systems, cat’s being much shorter and quicker.
Cats will (for the most part) just somehow know to use the litter box. There is no potty training needed, it is like the litter box is hard wired. It is so natural to them, and really easy on us it’s just not worth the effort to try to break their natural instincts on this.
Depending on the design of your toilet the problem isn’t teaching your cat how to flush, it will figure that out on its own. The real problem is paying your water bill.
As a more than casual cat owner (I am as attached to my cats as any dog lover is to their pooches) its not a fallacy that cats need to go indoors, rather its a fact that indoor cats need to go indoors.
Cats are very different creatures from dogs. Let me rephrase that: Cats are very fragile creatures compared to dogs. There are many, many things in the outside world that can be very dangerous to cats. Much more so than dogs. Dogs themselves, for starters. Also cars, fleas, ticks, rotten little kids etc.
I know outdoor cats love getting to go carousing, but I don’t care. What they don’t know about they don’t miss, and even if they do know and want to go out, well, too bad. They’ll get over it by living, on average, a lifespan that’s two to three times longer than an outdoor cat’s!
Litter boxes are only as disgusting as the owner lets them get. My cats are using crystal litter, which I am liking much more than the clumping litter I used to use. I scoop the poop every morning and the crystal absorbs the urine. I change the crystals as needed. I have 3 boxes for two cats.
Remember cats cannot be tamed.
They become even more feral when they are let outside; even more so, when not supplied a litter box and they do their duty outside.
A little more motivation on their part and they will ‘prefer’ another spot to stay at; never to be seen again.
Dogs are loyal, it does not matter where they do their duty.
Every cat I trained to do its duty outside; always eventually didn’t return.
If a cat owner loves their cat, and wishes it to live a long, healthy life, there is no better way to demonstrate this than to keep it indoors. Always. This means that facilities must be provided and maintained for the cat’s elimination needs—hence an indoor litter box or functional equivalent (I have used the toilet training, and it really works!)
Your mom did not want to be responsible for this cat, therefore she wanted it to do its business outside. Was she home all day to let the cat in and out? Because when I had indoor/outdoor cats, they constantly wanted in or out, just like the dog. Most modern pet owners appreciate that owning a cat means you don’t have to be home at a certain time each day to let the darned thing out, and if you free-feed, you can even go away for a few days and leave them alone in the house or apartment. That makes a cat very low-maintenance. Using a litter box is actually a feature and benefit of cat ownership, not some sort of lie perpetuated by the cat-care industry.
Yes, for a lot of us, having a litter box is the advantage of a cat. My cat prefers to use the bathroom outside. I still have a little box, for the times when I’m not home, or when I want to sleep in.
You don’t need a dog to help train a cat to go outside. Some cats are hard to train, some barely need to be trained at all. And then there was my brother’s cat, who got put out in the morning when everyone went to school/work. She would wait all day long, until she got let back inside to use the litter box.
I see it as simply better for the health of the cat. Mine never go out - except for yearly vet visits, in the carrier - and have no interest in doing so.
Then again - you see them as pets. I see them as small, furry children who don’t speak clearly.
Eh? Do you mean in some ironic or romantic sense? Because factually of course they can. In fact as domesticated animals, non-ferals pretty much start out that way ;).
This has not been my experience. Every cat I’ve ever had was, to the best of my knowledge, either trained to use the box by a human, or another cat. My current number one cat, Misha, who was a former outdoor rescue cat, had not been trained. My then number one cat, Puddin’ (sorry, no pic on the web, and Misha was number three when he arrived), used to cuff him upside the head whenever he went on the floor, until he started using the box. Puddin’, when he was a kitten, had to be trained by me. There were a few others, that I had from kittenhood who’s mothers taught them.
The others who were rescue cats, knew how when I got them. I don’t know how they learned, but every one I’ve had that didn’t already know how, had to be taught, so I’m inclined to believe that either another cat or a human taught them.
