To re-train your cat back to her good litter box habits, confine her to one room. It’s hard to say exactly for how long, but most cats are back in the habit within a week.

Pick a nice sunny room for kitty. Set up a clean cat litter box, food, water, toys, and bedding for her to sleep on. Be sure to put her food and water as far away from her litter box as possible.

Keep kitty in this room while you’re gone. Many cat owners purchase kitty DVDs for their cat to watch all day long while they’re gone. These DVDs feature birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and other critters that dart around. You can set up the DVD to play in a continuous loop all day long. These videos are also available in VHS tape format.

Let kitty out under your supervision. If she looks like she’s heading for her favorite corner to make an illegal dump, get her back to her room immediately, and place her in the cat litter box. If she uses it, praise her.

Generally, cats “get it” very quickly. For one thing, they get lonely being in a room by themselves. For another, it’s a cat’s natural inclination to use a litter box. As long as you’ve corrected the source of her problem with the litter box, she’ll go back to using it.

If you can’t let your cat out and supervise her, be sure to visit kitty often. Sit in the room with her, and keep her company. Watch the DVD with her!

Confinement is not cruel if it’s done properly. If your cat won’t use the litter box during her confinement period, then the cat urine odor damage is limited to one room. If after a few days, your cat is still not using her cat litter box, please consult with your vet. There may a deeper issue that you simply can’t tell from observation.

For more information on cat behavior and training, please click here.

Many people wonder why cat urine odor is so hard to get rid of. This article talks a little bit about the composition of cat urine.

Cat urine is composed of five different bacteria strains. Two of the bacteria strains are associated with the cat’s marking scent. The other strains are in the cat spray, urine, and uric acid.

The sticky, tacky part of cat urine is urea. Urochrome is the pigment, and then there are the uric acid crystals and salts.

The first two components are not difficult to clean. The uric acid with its crystals and salts are what we continually see and smell, long after we’ve tried to clean the cat urine spot.

The crystals are insoluble, and they bond tightly to any surface they land on. This is why cat urine is immune to common household cleaners. Any type of moisture that gets on the crystals reactivates them. This is why we smell cat urine odor more distinctly when the weather is very humid.

The only way to completely and permanently clean up cat urine odor from any surface in your home is to use an enzyme cleaner. These cleaners are special formulas that actually eat the bacteria and crystals in cat urine.

Common household cleaners don’t contain enzymes. If they do, the enzymes are probably specific to cleaning up blood. Pet odor and stain removers use enzymes that attack and get rid of urine bacteria.

The worst type of cleaner you can use on cat urine odor puddles is any ammonia cleaner! Cat urine contains ammonia. Pour one of these cleaners onto that puddle, and its calling kitty’s name to come over and mark the spot again!

Now you know more about cat urine and its’ odor than you probably wanted. However, if you or someone you know has a cat urine odor problem, this is why it’s so difficult to get rid of.

For more information on cat behavior and training, please click here.