Amber Stage - Poop on the floor

Hi there!
I've made this special post on "Poop on the floor" because that is the most common problem with amber stage which seems very hard to solve. Some peple try blocking all the floor area with stuff so that their cats don't have space to do it there. This was not practical for me, so I had to come up with something else...

Ok, so you have seen how to use the cardboard method. If you need more details, click here.

In our first day with the cardboard method, we made a very tiny hole, almost not enough for your thumb to go through.

Lee was just fine with that.

Next day we cut a bigger whole (twice the size). Lee was still fine with that.

Next weekend we had to go away from home and we left her with this ring without further increasing the hole. We had a friend coming over to check on her and we did not want Lee to leave him any bad surprises. So we decided to play it safe.

She did number 1 and 2 on the LK in the first day, no problems. However, in the second day (with even more pee) the cardboard started to get soaked with pee (we had not sealed completely the sides of the hole with tape and there was even litter stuck between the ring and the cardboard - that's when we realized how important it is to seal everything!). With the bad smell (for us it was not so bad, but for a cat it certainly was) Lee refused to go there and pooped on the floor, in front of the toilet!

Ok, we came back and cleaned everything. We put a new cardboard with a bigger hole. Lee had some hesitation to go at first.  Soon she was peeing there without problems, but number 2 is always problematic. We had to put her up in the LK a few times so she wouldn’t do it on the floor. She would go up and down the toilet until she felt confident to go in the LK, but we had to be with her every single time. I thought she would never learn to do it alone. After around 1 very frustrated week, she decided to poop in the right place alone all by herself!!! We were very glad, and she received extra treats (oh, yeah, we always give her some yummy snacks after she pee or poops n the LK).

After a few days, we used a cardboard that covered only half of the hole in the LK. That was an even bigger step for her, and difficulties appeared everyday. In the first day she didn’t poop, but peed on the LK. In the second day, she pooped on the floor and right after she also peed on the floor (that was her only pee accident so far). That was really hard on me. I thought I had done everything wrong, but apparently it was only her way of saying she is not happy with the change in the cardboard.

In the next morning, I stayed with her in the bathroom and she peed in the LK. From that day on she continued to follow her to the bathroom, but after 3 days we were confident enough to let her go alone to pee and we had no more accidents. 

But the pooping was hard. There would be poop on the floor everyday. 

This is what I did to solve the problem: put her up the toilet once or twice. She would go down immediately and start digging on the floor. I would then wait for her to "sit", ready to poop, and then put her up the toilet. Of course this works, because cats don't move after they've started to evacuate. But like that she was not learning anything at all. She would learn that she could still start on the floor and then she would suddenly appear in the LK. WRONG!

After one week using this method, which completely failed to teach her anything, I've decided to do it differently. I decided to put her up in the LK immediately after she came down from it. Without stopping until she would finally decide to start digging the litter in the LK. In the first day I put her up 7 times until she started to smell and dig her litter. She then turned around a few times, dug some more and pooped! 

In day 2 I had to put her up 5 times. 
In day 3 I put her up twice only.
From day 4 I would just go with her to the toilet and she would poop in the right place.   

Now she knows where she has to poop. However, that doesn't mean she is comfortable with it: there is still some balancing problems, small space for standing and pooping, not a lot of litter and so on.

Because of that, every single time that she had the chance to poop on the floor in front of the toilet, she would do it. The only way to avoid that is to be with her, giving her some encouraging words and eventually putting her up the toilet. We then keep the door of the bathroom closed until she wants to poop (she just stands in front of the door) and then we support her. Once she has already pooped (she does it only once a day), we leave the door open. Fairly simple, no? Not at all. We forgot the door open 3 times this week and we got 3 poops on the floor. Our fault there. 

So this is where we stand right now. Lee can pee without problems in the LK (amber stage with half of the hole covered by a cardboard), but can only poop there if we help her. If you are in the same stage, with similar problems, don't give up! Leave a comment and let's go through it together!