Can I teach him to cover it up?

[lizch6699]

When Otis broke his leg he stopped covering up his pee because it was just to hard for him to do. Now that he's all healed he still doesn't cover it up! This causes major problems because my other 2 cats step in it from time to time. When he goes #2 he covers some of it up but doesn't do a very good job. I've tried to take his paw and cover it but he still doesn't get the point. Any advice?

 

[hissy]

Scoop it out, he still remembers how painful it was to scoop. It is doubtful he will cover his waste for a very long time

 

[lizch6699]

It's not that it was painful for him to cover up, it was just to difficult for him to turn around in the litter box to do so. When he broke it I took a box and cut it down to size so that he wouldn't have to fight to make it through the opening in a covered litter box. So instead of coving it he'd just hop out. I have 2 litter boxes and scoop at least once daily and it's just not an option for me to scoop it every time he pees, I'm a student so I have classes I have to go to. I can't skip classes just to scoop litter...

 

[sbw999]

just a guess but i think your kitty has some residual pain from breaking his leg, and it is just uncomfortable for him to move around in the box. I would think that once his pain diminshes completely, which hopefully it will, he will go back to his instincts and bury his waste. Other than that I dont know how you might teach him to do it.. Good luck!

 

[lizch6699]

He's been healed for at least a month now so I doubt he's feeling any pain from it. :-/ I wish that were the case because then I wouldn't have to worry about him doing it naturally.

 

[jekyllhj7]

Our youngest cat (found at 5 weeks - now 1 year) has never covered anything. Kinda bad cuz he steps in his own poop somtimes. Yuk. We try to clean it out as often as possible. We think his mom never taught him.
Our other cat, spends forever in the box covering up. She is a bit fastidious. But both use their own covered boxes (we put one box in her terrirtory upstairs, and one in his room so they just about never use the other's boxes - good for determining if something is wrong with either one)

Anyhoo... back to the subject - the covered boxes work out great for him since he never covers anything and we can't always scoop immediately. (work and such)

 

[liza24]

I had to teach Prue to use the litter ( wet her bum, then put her in the litter, she got it after a few tries). I also had to show her how to cover it. took about a week, but now she is way more anal about it then i showed her,lol. i would say give him a few more weeks post healed, then see if he covers it, if not, then i would use a clumping litter, just my opinion.

 

[lizch6699]

How did you teach her to cover it? I do use clumping litter so that's not the problem. I also looked back over his medical records and he's been healed from the broken leg for 2 months now, plenty of time for the pain to go away. He's also starting to pee on my boyfriends clothes and in corners. I'm going to take him in to be tested for a UTI on Monday.

 

[liza24]

i taught her by watching her go , then using her paw and covering it, and naturally she liked to dig, and caught on.