Kitten mad, and refusing to use litter box

[alo]

We just adopted a rescue kitten last week. He is blind and deaf, but gets around so well you hardly notice it.

He was using his litter box just fine, until we went back to work on Monday.

Now, he relieves himself everywhere but the litter box. And we can't get him to start using it again! HELP!

We're assuming he's just mad because we went back to work. But it's hard to retrain him! He keeps pooing and peeing in the same spots. And I know once he starts doing that in certain spots, he's going to keep it up because he smells his previous messes (no matter what we use to clean it up, the cat can still smell it, I am sure - they have a sense of smell that's like 1000x better than ours, and his is sharp since he has very little other senses).

We have cleaned the floors over and over, and sprayed citrus air freshener in the areas where he has been doing his business. We bought two more litter boxes, and put those in the areas he's been going, and we moved his food away from his original litter box in case that was the issue. And we added "Cat Attract" to the litter in his litter box (which is supposed to attract the cat to the litter box).

So far he's just refused to use the litter boxes at all now that we've made those changes. I have no idea what we'll find when we go home today. I'm nervous.

Can anybody help?

[bunnybeth]

One of our cats was pretty mad at us when we went on vacation last month, and it really wasn't a pretty thing. We added another litter box, and moved the food to a new location, just like you. Plus, DH now scoops the boxes every day. And, we clean up the floor and then spray it with Feliway twice a day. That didn't seem to help much in our situation, but my friend had it work perfectly with her cat. It is expensive though. We got it at the vet, but I've heard some pet stores carry it.

I'm not sure about this, but I've heard that you should not use scented products to clean up the spots, or cover up the smell. The "weird" scent (e.g. citrus) makes the cat want to "reclaim" the area. Maybe being blind and deaf makes your kitty have super-duper-smell, even for a cat.

And, maybe you should make sure to give him lots of attention when you are home. Plus, he should eventually get used to you going to work.

Good luck!

[StClaire]

I just had the carpet cleaners out today for that very reason. They suggested using rubbing alcohol to clean up pet accidents. They said it kills the smell as well as the bacteria that pet messes leave behind. Also, my vet suggested putting aluminum foil down where the kitty is going. Apparently they don't like that too well. We had to retrain our kitty- we keep our litter box in the utility room. The vet suggested we keep the cat in that room only until he got used to it and was using his box. It took a while, but it worked. In our situation, I think the cat smelled the previous owners pets and was claiming his territory, plus he was upset about the move. Like the other post said, don't use scented things to cover up the smell, it only makes it worse. Good luck!

[alo]

Thanks so much for your replies, they really helped! And we were successful!

We blocked off all access to the areas he was messing in, and just kept him in a small room with his litter box. We moved the litter box, and changed to a different litter. And something out of all that worked! Woohoo!

Thanks so much. Oh, and the aluminum foil kept him out of the area for about a day, and then he had no problem walking all over it. I guess he's a strange kitty!