Cat Health

Adopting a kitten is a fun experience. Caring for a small creature that is total dependent on you can be a bit stressful at first, but having a kitten to play with can change your life. Unfortunately, kittens rarely come a home ready to use the litter-box. Learning how to train a kitten is not hard if you are dedicated and patient. My four tips on how to train a kitten will make the entire potty training process move faster, and they will help you avoid making any potentially messy mistakes.

Start Right Away

The most common mistake new kitten owners make is waiting to start toilet training. The average kitten is ready to start using the litter box when they are only one month old, so waiting for a long period of time can actually do more harm than good. Once you get your kitten home, place them in a small space with their litter-box and let them grow used to standing in it and walking around. Do not bother them by petting or stroking them when they are in the box to wee.

Kittens will grow nervous about using a box for peeing if they are always being touched when they enter it. Think of it this way, would you like someone standing over you each time you used the bathroom? Getting started right away will keep your kitten from learning bad potty habits that you will have to train out of them in the future.

Avoid Changes

Once you have placed the litter-box in a certain location, leave it there. Changing the location of the box will confuse your kitten. After a while, the kitten will stop looking for the box and might start going to the bathroom on the ground where the litter-box last was. Pick a place for the box and keep it there until your kitten is old enough to understand that their litter box has been moved, and change their habits accordingly.

Keep it Clean

Just because the litter box is a toilet does not mean it should smell like one. Cats are clean creatures, and they will not use a box that is dirty. Make sure your new kitten always has a clean box for them to wee in by cleaning it at least once a day. If the litter-box is always clean, your kitten will grow used to using it all of the time and associate it with a "clean" place to use the bathroom.

Don't Punish Your Kitten

Mistakes and accidents will happen no matter how dedicated you are to toilet training your kitten, they may use the bathroom on the floor in the house. When that happens, do not punish the kitten excessively. Telling the kitten that they are "bad" and taking them to the litter box is enough. Often accidents happen because the kitten is sick, scared, or nervous about something that just happened. Punishing the kitten will only add to their anxiety, and cause them to avoid you, the litter-box, and anything else that they find frightening.

It is important to start learning how to train a kitten as soon as you bring them home from their former home. Creating a safe, consistent, learning environment for your kitten will keep them happy and teach them that there is nothing wrong with using a litter box. If you would like to continue learning from my experiences on how to potty train a cat, find more of my tips and the 2 resources that helped me at http://howtotoilettrainacat.info.

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