Hey all!

My three month old Bengal kitty poos and pees in her litter box but doesn't cover them up. She scratches at the litter after eliminating but doesn't aim properly so they're always left uncovered. Sometimes she even scratches the walls of the litter box which puzzles me. It's as if she doesn't understand the point of scratching at the litter to cover up. Any idea how I can get her to cover properly?

Thanks!

My boy is 4 years old and still doesn't cover his poo, he just does it and runs off.

My girl is much better at covering up hers occasionally she will cover his for him as well.

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Clare
Magic (brown spotted boy born 31 March 2012)
Pearl (seal Lynx Point girl born 1 October 2015)
Bristol, UK

Babbage is also a member of the Scratch Everywhere Except Where It Matters Club.

He will go to elaborate lengths to scratch, even having pulled books off the shelf above his tray, the poop remains proudly on show. It is likely, Meeka, that as chief cat, yours is simply telling the world that the poop, the tray and all who can smell it belong to her.

You get used to it after a year or two.
:-)

Oh yes, and I've seen Ada covering up Babbage's offerings at times as well.

The most important thing is that she's using the tray! She's still young, she may get better with her co-ordination. Jagger used to cover Hendrix's (and he made no effort to cover it at all!) but he can now do it himself - although litter gets thrown everywhere!!!

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Clare
Hendrix and Jagger, Brown Marble Boys (born 18 August 2013)
Hampshire, UK

Welcome, Meeka. I hope you don't let this issue bother you. She is using the litter box, which is great. Mine splatters litter everywhere trying to cover his up and also scratches at the wall. Every cat is different. This may be something she learns down the road. At least you can immediately tell she has gone and can get it picked up and discarded. Does she also try to dig a hole to China to go? Mine does, but he rarely hits the hole. LOL.

Some potential things going on here:

1> She never learnt how - potentially she was let go from her mother too early (or perhaps not taunt by her mother).
2> Territorial - when a cat wants to show dominance they can leave it uncovered. This is more common in a multi-cat household where their expectation is the submissive cats will cover it for them.
3> She doesn't like the litter
4> The litter box is too small for her to feel comfortable

Here are some possibilities of things to try:

A. Try some different types of litter that have a different feel.
B. Try a larger litter box
C. (The most work) - try to toilet train her. Bengals can be toilet trained (most can anyway). It's a long patient process.

Thank you everyone, for your responses and suggestions! :)

She's the only cat in my house (my first ) so I doubt it's her trying to show her dominance, unless it's towards me. Haha. I suspect she might have been taken from her mother too early as you said ontariobengals (I got her a month ago when she was 2 months old) because she is displaying other related behaviour such as kneading me and sucking on my neck or t-shirt. She didn't do it at first, but I think she's gotten more and more comfortable around me that she does it every chance she gets (usually when I'm lying down). I have to cover myself with my blanket from the neck down to prevent her from doing it. I found it cute at first, but I have to admit, it makes it very difficult for me to sleep at night when every time I move, she wakes up and starts kneading and sucking.

I've gone off on a tangent it seems, but yes, I am grateful that she's always used the litter box from day one!

Update: I came home today to find Meeka's poo covered in litter. YAY!!!! Seems it's a hit or miss kinda thing for now. Hopefully she has more success with it as she gets older.

Here's Meeka if anybody's curious :)
https://www.instagram.com/bengalmeeka/

Aww, she is stunning! Congratulations. I'm sure in time she will get better with the covering of the poo. Normally, the mama takes care of teaching the kittens how to do this properly and Meeka was taken from her mom way too early. I think she will get the hang of it as so much can also be instinctive ... but she is precious and it would not bother me if she never covered it. She's too cute!

But take Ontario's advice.

She's beautiful - very nice.
If you got her at 8 weeks than yes, it's really likely she was taken away too early.

You are going to have to hope that instincts continue to kick in as without another cat to teach / correct her it's entirely up to her.

At this point, if she covered it once - I would just leave things alone right now. See how she does. You can try to help her when she does it by gently taking her back and then showing her you covering it when she doesn't do it. But only do that in the near term - don't wait for hours; it needs to be fairly quickly after to get the message.

Thank you for the kind words. She is just as sweet as she is gorgeous. :)

Thanks again -- I'll keep you posted on the poo covering situation!

If this is the ONLY issue you ever have with Meeka, consider yourself extremely fortunate!

I'm crossing my fingers, Sherry!

Actually, I do have a question about toilet training. If I train her to use my toilet, and then move out of my current place, will I need to retrain her to use the toilet at my new place? Or is it more like "once trained, always trained"?

The hard part about toilet training is to get them comfortable going over a hole and perching on the seat over water.
As long as, when you move, the toilet is basically the same shape it shouldn't be an issue.

It is not natural to a cat to use a human toilet. Cats are instinctive to having dirt, sand, litter, etc. to dig, go and cover. I will not teach my cat to use a toilet until he can also flush the toilet afterwards. And knowing my clumsy bengal, he would fall in right after he did his business! Yuk! That's not for me.

Good luck and have the patience to train your kitty.