'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
How many cats and how many litterboxes do you have? I think you're meant to have as many as you have cats + 1, so if you have 4 cats you should have 5.
I ignore kittens
You might want to try to get an older cat that's friendly with humans and is litter trained. From what I understand, young cats who grow up without mothers will not learn cat behaviors like litter box use or even self cleaning. Give her a role model to learn from.
You should definitely take her to a vet first and make sure everything's working okay, though. The vet would also have better advice than we would. :P
Pokemon FC: 5112-3501-2407 Trainer: Oli FS: Viscoe - Farfetch'd/Hoothoot/Rufflet - Currently Full, DO NOT ADD
Secondary 3DS: 3668-8923-2263 FS: Slider - Phanpy/Camerupt/Diggersby
Avatar by Kyoht.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
That's what Apple should make, the iBox.
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"This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."
-- Capt. Copeland
It's not about keeping it clean, it's about avoiding territorial disputes. If you have one cat it's not an issue (unless your cat has stress related to the litter box in which case giving it a second option reduces stress.) But often with multiple cats, they'll fight over who owns that box, and it will cause your other cats to go outside of the box because it's a hostile environment.
I used to own two cats and they did fine with one litter box, but you know, it's on a cat-to-cat basis. Different personalities and all that.
Pokemon FC: 5112-3501-2407 Trainer: Oli FS: Viscoe - Farfetch'd/Hoothoot/Rufflet - Currently Full, DO NOT ADD
Secondary 3DS: 3668-8923-2263 FS: Slider - Phanpy/Camerupt/Diggersby
Avatar by Kyoht.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
This is simple, you get rid of the cat and get a real pet, like a dog.
READ and be less Ignorant.
Pokemon FC: 5112-3501-2407 Trainer: Oli FS: Viscoe - Farfetch'd/Hoothoot/Rufflet - Currently Full, DO NOT ADD
Secondary 3DS: 3668-8923-2263 FS: Slider - Phanpy/Camerupt/Diggersby
Avatar by Kyoht.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Yeah, my cat's a cuddlebug with people. When it's a human, he's the nicest little guy you could ever want. He's just 20 lbs, so sometimes when you want to sleep, he wants to put all of his weight onto your hip bones.
But when it comes to other animals, he gets HIGHLY territorial. My dog has a few scars from my cat's claws. So when I moved away from home and took the cat with me, I resolved that I would not own any other animals if he could bully them.
Speaking of my cat though, and this is on topic, he was a feral rescue. We got him at an unknown age (couldn't have been more than a few months old) when my uncle found him in some trailer park. Initially he was confined to our basement because FLEAS (and also he was eliminating all over the house) but we had another cat, who was about 4 at the time, completely domesticated. The litter box was in the basement and he learned how to cat from her. Too bad he grew up to antagonize her until the day she died. >.<
But yeah, I mean, I can't be 100% sure that he learned to use the litter box because of Jewel using it in front of him for a while, but he didn't go in the house anymore after his basement confinement concluded. So I'd say that using a role model as an example wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, assuming you could have another cat.
Pokemon FC: 5112-3501-2407 Trainer: Oli FS: Viscoe - Farfetch'd/Hoothoot/Rufflet - Currently Full, DO NOT ADD
Secondary 3DS: 3668-8923-2263 FS: Slider - Phanpy/Camerupt/Diggersby
Avatar by Kyoht.
.
"This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."
-- Capt. Copeland
Mine was a feral rescue too. She couldn't have been more than a month or two old when I got her, but she was instantly in love with me and with living in my apartment. She loves people too after a few hours breaking in period of being around them, but she's initially terrified of them.
I don't know if the shelter I got her from did any kind of training, but she knew to use the litterbox instantly when I got her home. No training required. She had some tapeworms that had to be dealt with though, which was kinda gross.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
It probably is a bit excessive in most cases but some cats are picky and some gets worse the more you have. Number of cats +1 is what a lot of websites recommend, as well as that cat guy on animal planet. If having that many litterboxes stop a shitting/peeing problem it's definately worth it! If OP's cat is a feral it might have even bigger sharing/territorial issues so it's worth a try to add more litterboxes. The cat might feel like it's invading very private space using the other cat's litterbox and it might feel threatened and don't want any trouble so maybe it's not using the litterbox as it belongs to the other cats.
5 litterboxes for 4 cats sounds like a lot, but then again I think 4 cats sounds like a lot If you have 4 cats you should have a big enough house/place for 5 litterboxes or you might have too many cats! I have a personal limit of 3, allthough I only have 2 currently. They share one litterbox but prefers to go outside so the litterbox is very rarerly used. If it was an issue though I would definately get them more litterboxes.
The way I think it works is that cats have a natural impulse to bury their waste, so litter boxes click perfectly with it as long as they know where it is.
Some cats though, like ones that are used to shitting wherever they want outside or are too young to have been introduced to bathroom behaviors, can get confused and will like imprint on other materials or try to bury wherever they like best. That might be the litter box, or it might be under your sheets in the laundry basket. It all really comes down to personality... some animals learn faster or don't get stressed out by change.
In my cat's case, he just went on the carpet and tried to bury it but failed. He also marked (sprayed) on the walls. I believe he was able to pick up proper litterbox behavior from his role model Jewel while being confined to the basement until he was dewormed/didn't have fleas anymore, and we fixed the spraying by having him neutered when he was old enough.
Pokemon FC: 5112-3501-2407 Trainer: Oli FS: Viscoe - Farfetch'd/Hoothoot/Rufflet - Currently Full, DO NOT ADD
Secondary 3DS: 3668-8923-2263 FS: Slider - Phanpy/Camerupt/Diggersby
Avatar by Kyoht.