Do most owners of outdoor cats provide a litter tray indoors?

[SylvanMoon]

I was just listening to Sliced Bread on Radio 4 about kitty litter. The woman who was being introduced as wanting to know which type of litter was best to use said that she was new to having to deal with kitty litter as this was the first time she'd owned an "inside cat". The implication was that she'd previously owned "outside cats" and didn't ever provide a kitty litter for them. I was quite surprised by this and wondered how common it is that cat owners just expect their cats to defecate on other people's property. My neighbour has two cats who roam around outside, but have a litter that they use inside. (They also poo outside.) I don't have a cat or dog, but I do have a front and back garden where I grow fruit and vegetables. And it's cost me quite a lot to cat-proof my soil with scat mats and netting so that the neighbourhood outside cats don't use it as their toilet. Are cat owners comfortable with that or do they think their cats are considerate and only poo on wasteland rather than in their neighbours' gardens?

I hope my cat shits in the wilder areas. Bit tricky since one of them was built on a few years ago.

Yes - because what can i do about it? never had a litter tray. never heard of someone having a litter tray for a cat that can go outside, I'm surprised that you're so shocked by it

My cats never had an indoor litter tray they used an outdoor one. I bought a dog kennel, a largeish one, put the litter tray in there fairly near their cat flap so they didn't have more than a few feet to go if it was raining. It kept the litter dry, no smell as it was outdoors and they all used it much to my surprise.

The last cat refused to ever use any sort of litter tray, indoor or outdoor but he did only go in my garden as he stayed close to home as he was very nervous.

Mine don’t have a tray. Hopefully they shit in my own garden but I expect they sometimes shit elsewhere. But we also have loads of foxes, seagulls and pigeons round here which shit anywhere and everywhere so I don’t really give it any thought. Neighbours are welcome to spray my cats with water pistols or scare them away with loud noises if they wish. No neighbour has ever mentioned it though and a large proportion of our neighbours also have outdoor cats.

(Foxes in particular have a penchant for very deliberately shitting in inconvenient places such as on garden furniture, garden toys or the doorstep. It’s like a fetish for them. At least cats tend to do it on soil beds).

SylvanMoon

my cat uses the litter tray but in general cats hide their toilet anyway, they’re not like dogs that just go anywhere

yes 4 cats 4 litter trays.

Once my cats start going outside as big kittens they stop using the litter tray themselves so there’s no point. I have a patch of bare earth I don’t grow anything in and that seems to encourage them to use it as their toilet. I currently have one cat who’s been indoors for 6 months for his health. In this time I’ve only seen the outdoor cat use the litter tray once

Edit: we currently have several new toms fighting for territory and them, along with the foxes, are just shitting on top of anything they can. Decorative grasses, statues, bin lids, flower pots etc. I can’t leave anything unusual outside or it will get a perfectly placed poop on top of it. I’ve never seen my own neutered females do things like that

yeah, that's a good point. We are not rural but there is a LOT of green areas and wild areas around here so I think there are lots of places for cats (and theoreticalyl, foxes) to shit etc but that's probably not the case everywhere. We have a a whole strip of a few hundred metres that runs along a stream along a major road, that's wild that I know is very popular with both cats and foxes for hanging out and, I assume, pooing in the bushes! And a couple of smaller areas that are similar and the house we lived in before was across the road from a park(ish) spot so it's likely that I'm not really appreciating what it's like when people live in truly urban areas and have outside cats.

Exactly. I’m sure my cat shits on soil beds. None of the neighbours have ever said anything to me about her shitting anywhere, we have good relations and they have young kids, so I’m sure they would mention it. They do see her but at a distance. One of them has artificial grass and paving slabs so she wouldn’t use that.

DH and I are quite keen for something like this with our new cats as they seem keen to stay close to home so far. Do you clean it out periodically or just dig it through?

CatOfHate has a litter tray because I shut him in at night. He last used it over a year ago.

Unsure if you know this but every animal shits outside.

Yeah it was church land that was built on (church plus overgrown church yard (no graves) lots of brambles and church hall). I guess all the rats and mice which lived there had to move out but have spotted them (rodents) since so just must be around.

Never until recently when my very elderly cat decided to very rarely go outside any more

We have a park at the back where I think my old cat roamed occasionally but current cat no way, would involve road crossing and bumping into dogs (her main fear).

Yeah, I've deliberately trained mine to shit in your garden.

You do realise there's all sorts of poo in your garden? Bird poo, fox poo, hedgehog poo, mouse poo, rat poo, vole poo, shrew poo, rabbit poo, badger poo, squirrel poo...

Yes we do. And she uses it. Never goes outside of the house despite being a roamer.

You realise that foxes, rats, mice, weasels, hedgehogs, shrews, voles, and every kind of bird out there all shit where they like?

Always had cats with outside access through cat flaps - but also provide indoor litter trays too. Occasionally a scared or poorly cat will use the litter trays.

My cat refused to use litter. When I left a tray of litter on a newspaper, he'd do his business on the paper, never in the tray.

I got rid of if and he just went in and out his cat flap.

If you put some used litter where you want them to go it will encourage them to go there as they know “their” smell. I just dig it over sometimes and I will bury any poop I see that hasn’t been covered over, but I don’t clean it out as I feel the benefit of them going outside is that I don’t have to scoop all the time and/or send bags and natural waste to landfill

Thanks. We're in the process of moving th elitter tray further and further into the garden - they're very committed to it! and next step planned was to sprinkle the litter around the bit we wanted them to use. We just weren't sure if, they do use it consistently, it would start to become a bit tricky. I think I might go get some more soil and do a good strong dig over there this weekend before we move to the final stage.

You can train your cat to even use the toilet ive done it. See youtube.
My current two cats I trained to use their litter trays indoors. I aked all my 5 neighbours to report outdoor shitting and in 5 years it hasnt happened. The litter trays get full quickly.
One cat never goes out she's 16 and is scared of outdoors and the younger one doesnt wander far. I find the girls easier to train than the boys.

My cat shits in our garden and presume in other ppls too,I also have cat litter that is used more in winter months when the ground outside its to wet for my kitty madam

British sewage processing cannot reliably cope with the parasites found in animal faeces. Don't flush cat poo.