Should You Train Your Kitten to Use a Litter Box?
The short answer to this is YES! Even if you are going to allow your cat to be outdoors whenever it wants, you need to be sure that if ever there was a time when it couldnt get outside for whatever reason, its already potty trained and can use the litter tray whenever necessary. It may not be happy using the litter tray but you probably dont care about that should you find yourself in a situation where allowing your kitten outside isnt an option.
It could be that you need to be out of town for a few days and you dont want to leave your cat door unlocked for security reasons, so your kitten needs to kept indoors. It could be that its too cold, especially at night in the winter, so you want to keep him inside so he doesnt come to harm in sub-zero temperatures. Its even more possible that at some time in his life, he will need a surgical procedure that will result in him being kept indoors for at least 24 hours. If you have trained your kitten to use a little box, the cat he grows into wont have a problem if he finds himself locked inside with no means of getting out.
When you first bring your kitten home, have a litter box ready for him to use. You wont be letting him out for those first days when hes tiny, so use this time to potty train him. Use a shallow tray that he can easily get into and put a layer of kitty litter into it. As he grows, always have a clean litter tray available, even if he doesnt use it hell learn where it is and when the day comes that he finds himself lock inside, hell know where the bathroom is and how to use it.
