I have an adult cat 13yrs and recently aquired a kitten who is now 5 months :roll: My adult cat has always been happy with a hooded litter tray with catflap, which I bought for her because two of my three dogs will eat cat poo :gag:

My 5month old will not use the hooded litter tray, she plays in it and ventures in without fear, but refuses to do her stuff in it and much prefers the dog bed which I am sick of washing! I am having to use two litter trays, the hooded one and a normal one but the dogs keep stealing the poo from the normal tray and there is nothing worse that a dog entering the room crunching on cat litter let me tell you!

I have thought maybe it is the flap and she feels enclosed but if I remove the flap then the dogs can get in.

I have looked at the "self cleaning" trays on ebay which would be handy, does anyone use these and what do you think to them?

Any thoughts or ideas?

Does the kitten get the chance to go into a completely clean litter tray first? I know one of mine used to refuse to use the tray if the others had been in first :roll:. I started having to find her quick and put her in there before the others went anywhere near it every time I cleaned it out! She soon learnt it was ok to use it anytime.

I think your best to get a new tray for the kitten, you will have a job geting it to share, even if the litter liiks clean it will still smell of your older cat. Once they get used to each other may be it will settle down and you can get rid of one.

She did go in it at first and did a poo and a wee in for a few days without problems but then decided to use the dogs bed. I may get another hooded as they are cheaper than the self cleaning ones and see how it goes, but what if the adult cat uses both? :o
edited to add my adult cat currently does not use the normal litter tray.

Your cat will continue to use the dog basket whilst the scent is there. Sometimes even a good machine wash doesn't get rid of all the smell. I had to replace my dogs blanket altogether. I bought her one of those fleece mattress protectors for £4.99. She loves it! :hihi: You may have to sit and watch for the kitten heading for the dog basket and put her in the tray and keep putting her back till she does something.

I have changed the dog bed and tried biological powder, simple solutions and safe4 to no avail. When I have caught her I have put her in her litter tray with a firm "no" but she also does it in the middle of the night :suspect:
What are the mattress protectors Kittena?

the fleecy ones u buy for ur bed all mine have these in there baskets about 5 quid for a double one in asda

I think your best to get a new tray for the kitten, you will have a job geting it to share, even if the litter liiks clean it will still smell of your older cat. Once they get used to each other may be it will settle down and you can get rid of one.

agree- cats are fastidious creatures- our wegie hates using a tray if another of our cats has been there first, just means we have to have at least 3 on the go at any one time and clean them out regularly. We use lidded trays but had to remove the swing doors as not all our cats liked being totally confined.

Also, we went for the biggest litter trays we could get (bought a couple of them from the supreme cat show but cant remember which shop) - 3 of our cats are classed as large breed, so need plenty of space to fit inside comfortably whilst they go about their business.

Weeing on bedding is usually a stress/anxiety thing - especially in youngsters-when we adopted my mums kitten Minty (when my mum died suddenly) along with one of her older moggies, we had this for a while - Try using a Feliway plug-in diffuser close to where your tray(s) are situated, I wonder if your youngster gets put off by the thought of dogs intruding - cats dont like an audience when they are using a tray.

We get our Feliways from Nutrecare.co.uk- less than £20 for plug in and refill-not sure how much vets charge for them now.

Hi again, Gemima, which self cleaning ones have you seen, by the way? When we went to the Supreme Cat Show, they were demonstrating the electric one that scrapes the soiled litter into a sealed container...very clever, but a lot of money, not very big or practical for a multi cat household and you have to be specific about the type of litter you use AND I did not like the plastic teeth on the thing that scraped across the used litter to gather it into the sealed container- because if your cat (or cats) ever do a runny pooh, imagine having the clean that toothed part...

Other ones I've seen demonstrated are the litter locker ones either where the wee drains through to the bottom and is seperated from the litter (imagine how that must smell!) or you have to roll the litter tray over after it has been used so that some kind of seperation takes place and the soiled litter goes into a seperate compartment where it can be removed at leisure- these ones were more interesting but quite small for the price. Would be interested to know which one you've been thinking of. xK

In terms of best types of cat litter- have had samples of all sorts from these shows- if I could afford to buy it in quantity I would opt for Worlds' Best which is brilliant - but being practical and not made of money, have to make do with either Catsan (on a good month) or Sophisticat or Tescos non-clumping (usually)