reading: Crisscross, still. I’m enjoying it, but I haven’t done a whole lot of reading lately. Fred said last night “F. Paul Wilson isn’t the best writer, but Repairman Jack is the BEST character!” True, that.
* * *
I spent three hours cleaning this morning – the master bathroom, doing laundry, vacuuming the upstairs, vacuuming and mopping the entire downstairs, dusting the upstairs – and I swear to god the house doesn’t look any different.
There are already kitty footprints across the dining room floor. Imagine that.
* * *
The spud came downstairs yesterday afternoon – she had a half day of school and was home before noon – and said “Do you have any errands I can run?”
“Like what?” I asked, to see if she had anything particular in mind.
“I don’t know… Maybe check the PO Box?”
Then I remembered that Diet Coke was on sale at the grocery store, and I said “You can do TWO errands for me! Go check the PO Box, and then go to Publix to buy 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke.”
We had a ten-minute discussion on exactly where Publix – the grocery store she’s probably been to ten zillion times in her life – is located. I gave her money, told her to buy 6 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke, and off she went.
She called to let me know she’d arrived at the post office, then asked if she could get Diet Cokes at Kroger instead of Publix.
“No,” I said. “They’re probably not on sale at Kroger.”
As an aside, how fucking ridiculous are we that we get all excited when Diet Coke is on sale? The regular price is $1.39, and they’re currently on sale for $1.09. That’s a savings of $1.80 for six bottles. And yet I’ll happily pay $1.51 for a large Diet Coke at McDonald’s a couple of times a week. WHERE’S THE SENSE?
Ten minutes later, the phone rang again.
“Um,” said the spud. “Where is Publix? Is it past Winn-Dixie?”
“That depends on which way you’re going,” I said.
“I’m in the Winn-Dixie parking lot…”
“Do you see Lowe’s?”
“Um… yeah?”
“Publix is in the strip mall on the other side of Lowe’s. It’s in the same mall as Staples,” I said.
“Oh,” she said.
She was home again ten minutes later, Diet Cokes in hand, everything just fine.
I have no idea how she managed to miss Publix. She had to have driven right by it! But I think the less questions I ask, the better.
Today, she drove my car to school and then home again. No problems. Wednesday, she’s going to drive a little further afield, to the mall. Hopefully she’ll make it home with no problems. If she gets lost, she’ll have her cell phone with her.
My lord, this whole business of being the parent of a driving teenager is mighty nerve-wracking.
* * *
THIS IS THE SECTION ABOUT THE KITTENS.
Okay, those of you who have dealt with kittens this age before – I need your help and advice. Leave it in the comments, would you?
The kittens are starting to pee on the rug. I had no idea this was going to happen – how dumb am I? (Don’t answer that!) I thought Momma was going to teach them to use the litter box. What the hell is going on? I’ve caught a couple starting to squat, and put them in the litter box, but they couldn’t be less interested in using the damn thing. We thought about putting the litter box where they’re peeing, but their favorite spot is behind the door, which would make it impossible to open the door. Is there something I can use to repel them from the places where they’re peeing (usually the corners of the room)? Every time I find a little puddle, I clean it up and spray Nature’s Miracle on the spot, but that doesn’t stop them from going back.
Am I spending too much time in the room with them? I go in there four or more times a day and spend probably half an hour each time. Am I interrupting Mom’s training-the-babies schedule?
Mom and a couple of the babies were sitting at the food bowls eating, and one of the as-yet-unnamed black and white kittens (we’re naming them tonight when we weigh and deworm them) LAID DOWN A GREAT BIG TURD IN THE FOOD BOWL. The food bowl HIS MOMMA was eating out of. And she just DID NOT CARE, she just kept on eating ’til I took the bowl away to remove the GREAT BIG KITTEN TURD. That was pretty damn nasty.
Anyone who’s dealt with this kind of situation before, I would VERY MUCH appreciate your suggestions and comments. Thanks!
Now, on to the pictures…
Flossie, hanging out with Mom.
“No, no, guys, LISTEN! You gotta listen to this! You won’t believe it! You will SHIT when you hear this story!”
Baby bellies and baby TOES. Could anything be cuter?
“Heeeeeeeeey, lady with the flashy thing! You wanna stop that shit? It makes me see dots!”
Flossie. I think she’s one of my favorites. Actually, they’re ALL my favorites.
I brought in something for them to sharpen their needle-like little claws on, and they all spent a long, long time sniffing it. I guess it smells like our cats. Aren’t I nice, taking toys away from our cats for the foster kitties to play with?
Flossie again.
I KNEW that sooner or later I’d get a yawning pic! Yay!]]>
My best suggestion for the Kittens is to keep on catching them in the act and placing them in the litter box, encourage them to scratch the litter a bit and that may make it more exciting for them. If they use the box give them praise when they’re finished, don’t interrupt them unless they are eleminating where you don’t want them to. And be patient, they’re still very young.
Robyn (I almost typed Bessie! Who am I to you? Weird…I think it’s the whole Flossie/cow angle) Anyway, no kitten advice but I must say that I LOVE Flossie and would name her Guernsey if I could adopt her. SO CUTE!
put them in the litter box and take their front paws in your hands and make them scratch the litter they will get the idea that is where they are supposed to go….you may have to do it more than once…. it would be good if you could catch them in the act of getting ready to go and then wisk them off to the litter box and do the scratching thing with their front paws… that is how we always trained our kittens to go…
As I have said a million times already. They are SO cute!
I’m don’t have any real good advice about the peeing problem. Are the litter boxes too high for them maybe?
Robin: I don’t think so – we bought a small lasagna pan that’s easy for them to get in and out of. I’ve seen a couple of them tromp through it with no problems.
This may be a silly question, but can the kittens get into the litter box by themselves? We always made sure that we had a short litter pan for them. I never encountered this particular problem with our kittens. Usually the mother cat is good at teaching them what they need to do.
I have fostered many a litter o’ kittens and I find that this works best.
Make a small separate litter pan (ie a disposable tin lasagna pan) thats not too deep.
The kittens can easily get into and explore it. Occasionally put them in and dig their paws in the litter. Soon you be finding the “evidence”
They catch on pretty quick…good luck!
You can never spend too much time with the kitties. Just think if you had a house full of kids under the age of ten. The kittens would never be left alone. Those kitties make the best babies – they like to be handled by humans. ‘
As to peeing – I’d lay down some of those disposable plastic lined sheet things in the corners (you can get them at any hospital supply place). You can get different sizes – my friend had little 2′ x 2’ ones. Using them plus wisking them to the litterbox is the thing to go.
Nancy – that’s exactly what we have, a disposable tin lasagna pan. I haven’t tried putting them in and digging their paws in the litter, though – I’ll definitely start giving that a try!
a good trick too is to lay down an old sleeping bag or quilt to protect your carpet…if it gets funky just throw it in the wash.
Your kittens look like they’re about 5 and a half weeks? Where we’re they before you got them? In my experience, kittens who are outside (or in a barn or a shed) or are living in bad conditions at 4 weeks when they start eliminating by themselves don’t develop a good strong ‘litterbox’ instinct right away. The lasagna pan trick works well. I also have squares of sheet vinyl flooring that I put down over the pee spots since they tend to re-soil the same spots. I have resorted to several small dishes for the dry food that they can’t poop in them. At that age they do have trouble trouble telling the difference between kibble and kitty litter. My kittens are six weeks old now and Butch still eats the kitty litter while he’s pooping, bletch! It’s like the front half doesn’t know what the back half is doing… I still love each and every one of them though. Poopy butts and all.
Bethk: They’re 4 1/2 weeks old. I’m not sure where they were before – I think in a cage in someone’s house, but I’m not positive. Thanks for the suggestions! 🙂
They look good (and big) for 4 1/2 weeks. I thought they were older. The more they see Momma using the box the better they’ll get at it. Flossie really is a cutey. I also like the male with the stripey belly… That’s it. I’m going to go home and play with my kittens right now.
um…no comments on the peeing thing that someone hadn’t already said. Is the momma ALWAYS using the box though? Like maybe she goes by the door sometimes to ward off the other cats? Also I wanted to know if I could link your site? I made one of my own on blogspot!
Hahahaha – I remember when my older daughter started driving alone … she constantly got lost at the drop of a hat, even when she was going somewhere we had gone a million times before. It made me crazy to have her call me and ask where she was. Then I realized that unless I’m actually driving the car, I never pay much attention to the directions when I go anywhere, and I have to ask directions if I’m going to return by myself.
Your kitties are adorable – also, your photography skills are amazing. Thank you for the fun.
Bethk: Yeah, they’re very well fed. Poor Momma! 🙂
Daftgirl: Yeah, Momma’s always using the litter box – there were no problems until a few days ago when Flossie squatted down by the door and peed.
I just went upstairs and put each of them in the litter box, then used their paws to scratch at the litter. They all looked at me like I’d completely lost my mind. Hee! I’ll keep at it, though.
Cat didn’t really get the litter box at first (he was really too young to be separated from his mama, only 5 weeks, but there were extenuating circumstances and she’d already weaned the kittens and wanted nothing to do with them), and I did what someone(s?) above said, just plopped him in there every time he ate and took his little paws and scratched a bit. After a day or two he seemed to catch on and went in there on his own.
Geez, Robyn, I don’t know what I’m going to do for my daily cute-fix when those little sweeties are adopted! Unless, of course, you adopt Flossie…
Oh, and I meant to say, I totally feel for the spud. If I haven’t driven someplace by myself a few times, I will get lost, no matter how often someone else has driven me there. I’ve lived in this area for something like 7 years now, and not a month ago I went out to pick up lunch at the KFC on the main drag where all the shopping is. I have been up and down that road about a million times, but I’d never driven to the KFC, and I just couldn’t find the damn place. Had to pull over at Big Lots to call my husband and ask where it was. (I had driven right past it.) He thought it was a lot funnier than I did…
I hope the kittens get the hang of the ol’ litter box soon! I’m sure they will. 🙂
Oh my gosh these kittens are the cutest…
I’m too impatient to read through all the comments right now, but I’ve seen it suggested to use shredded newspaper for kittens instead of kitty litter. Others’ suggestions of a less deep litterbox also sound good to me. We fostered kittens when I was a wee little lass, but the only lesson I took away from that was that you had to stimulate their anal glands with a wet cloth to get them to poop if there was no momma to do it for them.
Lynda: Yeah, there’s a whole section in the guide I got from the shelter on how to help orphans poop. It sounds like fuuuuuuuuun. Not!
Robyn, I think the more time you spend with the kittens, the better. My kittens had feral moms, so needed to be handled a lot. I was spending about 2 hours a day with them and some of them were still too shy. As for the litter box training, I thought each litter was doing very well until I would clean the whole garage after all the adoptions, and I always found an area that was saturated and turdy. One adopter returned two kittens because they were ruining her carpet. I had several litter pans in the garage and would narrow it down to one or two as they got older, but that was not totally successful. I bought a roll of that plastic sheeting you can get at Wal-Mart and cut pieces off as needed. One roll lasted for three litters. I kept it under the cat house to protect it from rain that seeped in. Also, made a kitty play station with a french door frame (with the glass windows removed) which I hung lots of toys and put it on two sawhorses.
I understand what you’re going through with the Spud. My daughter was the exact same way. It’s like their minds are in the clouds, right? She’s almost 23 now and I’ll tell you it will get better. Amanda’s a good driver and she’s never been in an accident.
I’m glad I live across the country from those kittens. I’d adopt Flossie in a second…OK, and all the other ones too. I don’t think I’d make a good foster mom.
Ooooh, BELLY SPOTS!
The scratching their little paws in the litter will probably work just fine. We had a little feral kitten last fall that had the same problem. We did the scratching thing, when we cleaned up her turds, we put one small one in her box and put her in there next to it so she’d smell it (we didn’t force her face into it or anything, just sat her in there and scratched her paws.) After a couple of days it clicked in her little head and she’s been a litterbox champ ever since.
Robyn, are you using a clumping litter? The foster mom I got my kittens from advised using a non-clumping, and then everytime you clean it, scatter a little bit of the old litter on top. The scent helps tell them “This is where to go”. Then when they’re fully trained, you can switch back to clumping litter.
Julie: An even better idea! Thanks for the suggestion. 🙂
Shayne: No, we’re using a regular clay litter – the shelter recommends that we don’t use clumping litter for kittens until after they’ve been weaned and litter trained, because they tend to try to eat the litter, and eating clumping litter can cause problems.
I’ve heard that you can soak some cotton in nail polish remover and put that where you don’t want the kittens to do their stuff. They don’t like the smell of it I guess, but I’m not sure how safe it is though. Just an idea. Cute kitties!
Some kittens when that young have a hard time getting to the box in time when they’re in a larger space. Don’t be super obsessed with getting all the poop or pee’d on litter out of the box. They need that scent to help them locate where the box is. You can try laying down tin foil over the areas where they’ve already pee’d. Most cats don’t like the feel of tin foil, but maybe watch them at first to make sure they don’t eat it. You never know what a kitten will eat!
I haven’t had time to read all the comments but have had a lot of kittens in recent years.
I am afraid that some kittens take to litter training more than others. I think it also depends how ok the mother is. I don’t think it is anything you are doing – if the mother has been abused or badly treated she may not be able to be a good mother. Or if she has been traumatised in anyway – she may not have the right instincts.
One of my cats is a little disturbed and we let her have a litter in the hope that it would calm her down. But it was a really bad litter – it didn’t matter how much effort we put into them they just never learnt to use that tray. But when they went to their new homes – they did learn – they were much better when there were only one or two of them.
I can only suggest the following ideas – and hope they might help.
More than one litter tray – two or three small ones are better than one big one – dotted round the room – and they need to be emptied a lot.
Try and make the space they are using now inaccessible. We put a cardboard box over it – I suggest this as you say it is by the door – mind you this will only work if you can close the door. Spray it with something nasty or cover it up. I don’t know whether you can get neutradol in America – it’s like a very strong pine smelling blob of jelly in a white plastic globe. That can work.
I am afraid it is very hard to get them away from a space they are used to and they can smell the urine through the deepest disguise. If there is room you could put one of the litter trays here – we did this with ours and it did work.
Keep putting them in the litter tray – each time you pass – they need to really know it’s there.
Don’t worry about them eating the litter – it’s very common – at this age they are not very discriminating. In fact cats are often not very discriminating as you will know if you have every seen a cat run in and eat another cats vomit (yuck).
Hope this help – please feel free to email if I can help any more. And you can look at three of our litters at http://www.pbase.com/nuala
Haven’t read all the comments, so excuse me if this has already been stated: Have you tried getting a small amount of dirt from your backyard and adding it into the litter pan for the kittens? This doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does, perhaps due to an instinct for “dirt” for digging and covering poo. I know that works sometimes with adult strays, when I’ve taken them inside and couldn’t teach them the finer aspects of “litter” box training. It’s worth a shot, anyway.
Good luck, and don’t give up. They are exceptionally young for learning litterbox training, but they’ll eventually get the hang of it!
Have you checked out the website Catster? It is a web based community of cat lovers, and friends. You can create a web page for your cats. And it has a forum page just for questions such as yours. We found it through Dogster-for you know, dogs, but they are pretty much set up the same. I’ll bet you get a lot of responses to your question there. The kitties are too cute! Good luck.
Hi Robyn,
All my life , I have had cats and many ,many litters of kittens.
If your kittens are only 4 and a 1/2 weeks ….they are just barely old enough to start litter box training.Thay have no inkling yet as to “when” they have to go. Unfortunatley…just like an un-potty trained human baby. Usually kittens are not kept on good carpet. 🙂
But if you can’t totally cover up the carpet , sometimes a “thrift store ” baby playpen is the way to go. The mom can get out at will, but the kittens can’t and don’t have to until they are better at hitting the pan ….or when you are there in the room to watch them.
The shallow pan advice is true too.
So jealous. lol
I miss having the baby kitties.
Good luck and enjoy every moment ! 🙂
You should take some of your kitty pics and join in at http://www.kittenwar.com!
I’ve read your blog for awhile and hopefully these ideas will help. Someone had told me that cats don’t like the smell of citrus so we had orange peels behind the couch because that is where 1 of the cats loved to go. That seemed to work. Also my hubby made litter boxes out of plastic storage containers (we have 9 cats right now) and everyone seems to enjoy that – more room – sometimes we get 2 cats in there at once.
For your consideration: I think Elsie is another good cow name for a black and white kitty.
Hi Robyn! I can sympathize with the Spud — when I first started to drive, I found it really difficult to pay attention to both moving traffic, and the buildings I was passing. So, for example, I couldn’t look for the Staples store to know where to turn, *and* look out for traffic at the same time. It is definately a skill that takes practice!
As for the kitties — I agree with a couple other comments — maybe the box is too clean. Maybe it would help the kittens if you left a poo in there so they could smell it? I know with dogs, when training them to go outside, you are supposed to take them back to the same place each time so that they know by the smell that it is OK to go there. And they say that if your dog/cat goes on the carpet to get rid of the smell or they’ll go there again. They’re so cute! Good luck with the litter training! 🙂
BTW — have you seen the new Star Wars movie? Plan to?
Lots of good advice! The only thing I couldn’t find here that I have done with kittens in the past is limit their space to roam. Meaning a space big enough for food, water, litter and moving around. We always used a BIG box with plastic under it. If the box starts to get icky you just use a new one. The mama can also jump out for a break when she needs one. You can take the kittens out and socialize them and then put them back in the box. I read about this method somewhere and it is based on cats are clean animals by nature and won’t poop where they eat, drink or sleep.
Just curious, do you itch around your cats or the new kittens? I’m trying to see if you can isolate your allergy.
Hey Robyn! Since I know you’re a Diet Coke lovin’ fiend like myself, I thought I’d tell you about the new Diet Coke with splenda that has recently come out. (If I’m telling you something you already know, please forgive me…)
It tastes like real coke, and I’m loving it!!! I know Target was carrying it around here (outside Philadelphia, PA) and now I’m seeing it in my local grocery stores. Just thought I’d share the info with ya in case you’re interested. 🙂
When my cat had kittens the momma was very good about training them. At about 4 or 5 weeks old everytime she went to the litter box her 4 little ones would try to follow her in but they had a tough time getting in and it was a tad bit crowded. My solution I bought her a big ass litter box and made a little ramp for them. Thereafter everytiome she went in, they went in and they would mimic her scratching whether they did anything or not. I also collected their kittie turds and put them in the box. In less than a week they were using the box like pros.
I agree with limiting the space the kittens are in, at least while they are this young. I’m a foster Mom for a TNR group, and that’s the way the group I volunteer with told me to do it. We use HUGE dog crates with litterbox, bed, and food/water areas, and I have never had a kitten go in the food or bed areas! I think, for some of the really young litters, probably Mom has still be cleaning, but I’ve had 4-5 week old babies without Mom and they are usually pretty good.
The kittens come out for playtime, and between 6 and 8 weeks, they get most of the run of the house or a room (depending on how many kittens and how they are doing w/the rest of the animals and how much sense they seem to have) and we don’t have any problems, despite some areas being already annointed by a moody adult cat. The group may have a big dog crate they can loan you for a few weeks, or maybe look into the body-sized rubbermaid containers?
Omigod, these pics are adorable.
How about Elsie and Astrid for names. I also had cats named Norbert and Gilman (Gus for short).