Kitten Litter Training Problems

[Evenstar]

I am fostering two 11 week old kittens and their mother for the rescue I volunteer at. I have had them here around 3 weeks. Mother cat was neutered last week and on veterinary advice separated from the kittens.

Before this they were in one room with two trays and apart from some accidents in the first couple of days they were using the trays. I hadn’t expected to have to separate mum, and gave her the other tray, so they were down to one very large tray between the two kittens for a couple of days. We had a few accidents so I bought another tray yesterday and covered the floor with puppy pads. There were less accidents till just now when I found huge wees on the puppy pads, though they had pooed in the trays.

They have Catsan litter which they had been using reliably until Friday and the trays are cleaned regularly. Any thoughts welcome.

I rather think they'll be able to smell their previous wee on the floor beneath the puppy pads, and it'll prompt them to go there again. Can you plonk the trays where they've peed on the pads, and hope they get the idea?

I have actually done that and cleaned the floor throughly, I have never known kittens to persist in being dirty to this extent, but they did come from a hoarding situation. It’s odd as they were getting it right before.

Maybe mum gave them the Paddington hard stare if they looked like getting it wrong!

They might be disconcerted by being without their mum, in which case it could just take a few days to settle down -- here's hoping.

Yes that could be, though of course they are more than old enough to be away from her. At least it was only wee this morning!

Puppy pads are specifically designed to encourage peeing.

I was at the vets tonight with mummy cat for her check up, they said fine to use the puppy pads (at least it’s protecting the floor) and the lapse is probably due to mummy cat not being with them and they will be OK once they adjust to the change.