I'm taking care of my dad's cat for about a month. I'm getting her spayed in two weeks and will be keeping her for a week or two after that. (I have to keep her for so long because she has kittens and the vet said they can't be nursing on her.)
It's gonna be a hard few weeks for her. She's in a new environment she's never been to before, she'll be away from her kittens for the first time. I also have three cats of my own that do not like her at all so I have to keep them separate. They hiss and swat at her or growl even if she's a room away. They even sometimes hiss at each other because I guess they get confused and it just feels tense. A fight hasn't broken out yet and I'd like to keep it that way.
I tried keeping her in the bathroom with the litter box and some food and water, but she started freaking out, climbing the window and knocking stuff over. So instead I've been keeping her in my dog's big crate and letting her out from time to time, supervised of course.
My main problem is that she won't use the litter box. She's been an outside cat all her life. When she had her kittens, she became a sorta inside cat. She actually trained my dad to let her outside to potty by meowing at the door constantly. She's never used the bathroom in the house and she's never used a litter box. She meows when she wants outside to use the bathroom and then meows when she wants back in.
I can't do that here. I'm in the city and it wouldn't be safe. I've tried putting her in the litter box several times but she just jumps out. I really don't think she recognizes it as a place to potty. There was other cat poop and pee in there and then I cleaned it all out, but she still won't use the bathroom. She's been meowing a lot and looking a bit frantic at times. I feel like she's trying to hold it in until she can get outside, but she doesn't understand that she won't be going outside. She peed once inside the crate and I ended up giving her a bath, which she hated, to get all the nastiness off. I'm trying to avoid having to give her anymore baths or her to stay in a stinky crate.
How can I make her see that the litter box is where she should use the bathroom? And also, what's some ways I can get my cats to not be so hostile towards her? I really wanted to make this transition as easy as possible for her but it's just not going as I planned. She seems miserable and I hate putting her through all this. How can I make it better for her?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/d1er0x/cat_wont_use_the_litter_box_and_seems_to_be/
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