Kennel Training

suze0220

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Hello I have thought about possibly training our kitten to stay in a "cat house" while we are gone. (the pet cages you can purchase, not the travel cases but the black cages almost like a big bird cage) I was just wondering if anyone else has tried this. The cage i am looking at is a pretty good size. More then enough room to have a litter box on one side and a food place on the other. It also has a shelf for him to sit on.
 

sheilad

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All 14 of my cats are crate trained. It began when i wanted them put up at night and purchased a large dog carrier for Momma and her two small kittens. I have not had any major problems doing this. I always lined the crate with a disposible pad so accidents were easy to clean up. I give a treat as a reward for going in and after a while it becomes a habit for them. With 14 we eventual built a large enclosure that does contain litterboxes but everyone is usualy ok overnight with out one. sheila
 

xxpunkkittenxx

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My cats live with my bf's parents (yeah im still in high school). They feel that crate training/ keeping my cats in a crate or any cage is wrong, but i feel th same way that you feel about it-it seems wonderful. we have a big dog kennel (the ones w/ bars- we hope to make cat shelves sooner or later). i was wondering what you thought about it as i would rather them stay in an open crate overnight, with access to the rest of his room, but none to the rest of the house.
 

petkeepr7789

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When my mother cat had her kittens I bought that same kind of cage to house them in. It worked out perfectly for me.
 

flinch4me

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Recently I have trained both my kittens who are around 6-7 months old as of now to sit in the crate when they are ready to go to sleep. I didn't do this on my own. Actually the cats eventually trained themselves.... NutterButter, the Torbie I have, was always an issue before now. But I believe she realized that the clock above the bed whenever it hit a certain point I would put them away. She is very smart and although some may say cats are not that smart because of being anti-social she is one of those few who notice things about human behavior.

And I realized this. Cats like to go in on their own time. You can't really force them to go in. So what I do is keep the door of the crate open so that they can go in and out at all times. but you can kind of put it in their heads of what time you want them to sleep. I just set the time for a certain point and every night I'd put them away for the night and go to sleep at this time. No matter what complaints they made for it.

I also realized they are a lot like toddlers. "I'm not sleepy! I'm not sleepy.." *THUD* and in all reality you just have to tough it out and get through the constant meows and such. Eventually they learned without my having to dig them out from under the bed that 11 was the time to curl up in the crate and wait for me to close the door. 

It took of course maybe three months and they just started doing this this last week so it's rare but it was a struggle the whole time but I am very proud of both of them for being such good kittens. I have also taken the time to play with them for about a half hour before putting them away. This way they won't decide to wrestle in the crate during the night and or meow until I get fed up with them. 

These are both good ways to kind of hint to the kitten about what time they need to sleep. Of course both kittens are very smart and some are not so much so and in some cases this doesn't work so well. But it's good suggestions. And I am sure that this could also work in some ways for what you are talking about :p 
 
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