teaching a kitten to bury in the box?

I have a 6 month old male kitten (and a 2 yr. old female, but she's got no litter box problems... touch wood) who uses the boxes properly, but doesn't bury anything. And with long hair, he's been known to step in "things" and track them around with him... Is it possible to teach him to bury his waste? It almost seems like his "to do" list is way too full, and that he's got better things to do than to waste valuable Kermitte-chasing time by burying his 'produce'.

Here's the culprit:

I just covered it up for them and then soon they started doing it themselves. now neo "plays drums" in there. he will just stay in the litter box and cover and cover and cover :LOL:

Purr~ I think it's so cute what you did for your cats..:LOL: Well, Jude was taught by the lady who runs the homeless cats/kitten. The lady told me that Jude is good at learning fast with no problem.

When we first adopted Tavish that we got him from outside as he was a feral kitten. We tried to show tavish how to bury it but he was so freak out when he was putting down in the littlerbox then he escaped from that litterbox. We are not done to show him how to do with the litterbox. The next day, we found NOTHING in the litterbox. We searched all over here and found it in our plants! :LOL: He did it again in the plants for a three days in a row. In the three days later, we got Jude. Tavish had seen what Jude did in the litterbox. Then Tavish followed him for what he did and Tavish did pretty good!! I am so amazaed to see that Tavish to pick up from Jude. That's about it.

that is how my cats learned to clean themselves. They watched my inlaws cats and then started doing it it is always helpful to have a teacher kitty.

I'd be interested in a solution too. My 3 year old Max doesn't bury his stuff EVER! However, sometimes Sydney will do it for him...good kitty.

I figured that Elmo would pick up good habits from his "big sis", but no such luck. The only habit he's picked up is Kermitte's mad scratching. She'll scratch and scratch and scratch down to the plastic and keep going (is she trying to dig a hole to China? :LOL: ) The cats sleep in the basement at night, and my room is right above the furnace room where the boxes are... guess who has to listen to the feline scratch-o-thon every night? :LOL:

maybe it is a male cat thing
but I do know that Rocky doesn't cover hardly at all...but Fluffy, when she is in there..she gets all fanatic with the litter and sometimes goes flying out on the carpet in the bathroom ...silly girl..I can always tell who's is who's..I have 3 litter boxes for the both of them, and can tell the difference in all of them

Ivo is a scratcher/digger too. I'm always amused to see that after all her work, her, ummm, treasure is still sitting on top of the litter! I have a covered litterbox, so it doesn't bother me if she buries or not.

This is a behavior that is taught by the mom cat. If a kitten is not with mom long enough, he never learns litter box manners. The only way I have found to solve this, is to stop using kitty litter- temp. and use instead organic potting soil. Put the potting soil in the box and for some reason the smell of the dirt perhaps triggers a response in the kitten or cat and they bury their waste. After they start doing this, start very slowly adding clay litter (not clumping) to the potting soil until the box will eventually be just cat litter.

Hope this helps! But it has to be organic, because regular potting soil carries pesticides that could harm your kitty.

Thanks hissy...that explains a lot. Max was abandoned by his mom when he was about 5 weeks old. I will try the potting soil trick though. Thanks again!