Litterbox Training

[Isabelle]

So I posted about a month ago about Dutchess’ injury and her new problem with litter training. She is pretty much 100% now ! Yay. Anyway, we’re still having litterbox problems. At night in her habitat she will poo all over the place! She does do some poops in her litterbox, but there will be like 50 poos on the bottom of her floor, and some up on her little platform too. At night if I hear the little ‘ping’ of a poo dropping onto the floor I get up and put her in her litterbox, but she just growls at me and hops back out.  I thought about using a hay rack instead of having her hay on the floor, which I felt could be a problem, but I put her hay directly next to her litterbox, she can just hang her head over and munch. I did try a hay rack in the past with her and she refused to eat out of it. Instead she shoves her hay back away from her litterbox, then goes and sits on top of it and poos. There is no way to set up her habitat with a square litterbox. I have square litterboxes around the house with hay in that she hops in and uses, but she does poo maybe 5-10 poos next to it hopping in or out, which I don’t mind too much. In her condo (her big new playland she stays in during the day downstairs) she doesn’t do it! She’ll have some poos here and there around the place every day, but that’s not a big deal. Her main problem is at night in her habitat. When she was injured I had to take her litterbox away for three days because she couldn’t get in and out of it, so I figured she thinks now she can just go anywhere in there.

There were also three nights in a row last weekend where she peed outside of her litterbox, right next to it! Yes, it could have been an accident, but three nights in a row? I soaked the bottom of her habitat in a little soap and warm water and cleaned it completely yesterday. She didn’t have a pee issue last night but she did her same poos all over. There will be times when she’s out around the house that she’ll move away from a spot and have left like a dozen poos  She has access to a litterbox 100% of the time. I’m not sure what else to try with her, I’ve picked up the poos and put them in her litterbox when she is not in her habitat and when she’s in it in front of her, I’ve also just removed them and tossed them in the garbage. This is beyond frusterating and I’m sick of cleaning up dozens of poos every morning

[Elrohwen]

If the hay is on the floor next to the litter box, I would guess that’s the problem. Hannah will pee anywhere there is hay – they just get conditioned that hay = bathroom. I would try another type of hay rack that you can attach right above the litter box and see if that helps. There are also hay racks that rest on the floor, but at least it would keep the hay in one spot and not all over.

[Isabelle]

I might give that a try, I was thinking about reorganizing her habitat and taking out her platform and ramp, and just giving her a rectangle litterbox which would hold her hay in it like the other ones she uses. I think I might be confusing her since 16 hours a day she uses a rectangle and 8 at night she uses a triangle with hay outside her litterbox. She’s probably just used to going at eating at the same time, like you said.

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