Expert: Dear Tabbi - 10/10/2008

Question
I am working on getting my indoor/outdoor cats to go back to using the toilet outside, as they did in our other house. We now have the luxury of a cat door. They haven taken to using the bathroom in one of our people bathrooms, even though at least one comes in and out the cat door at will. Any suggestions?

Answer
Angela,

At a new place the cats may not be comfortable going outside yet. Some cats are afraid of new animals in the area and/or don't want to go outside in the open.

You should have a litterbox inside too, especially for at night. Nighttime is the most dangerous time for cats to be outside because of predators and animals roaming for food.

Some suggestions:

Try sand outside. You can get chilren's play sand from Home Depot or other building supply store. Put a fair size mound of it somewhere in your yard. Cats LOVE to play in it then start digging holes for their business and will start using the sand when they are outside.

Put a litterbox outside (with litter in it). Usually they will use the litterbox outside instead of dirt. The next step is to remove the tray after a few days. The cat should then start going outside.

Or you can remove the litter box during the day. When the cat comes in and looks for the litterbox, or look like they are going to go where it was, hurry and pick them up and take them outside to some dirt (or sand) and try to keep them there. Eventually they will get the idea and make the connection that if there is not a litterbox down, then they are supposed to go outside.

I hope this was helpful.

Tabbi