by R.A. Scott

Created on: July 15, 2008   Last Updated: April 17, 2009

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." Dr. Albert Schweitzer

When Molly Dolly joined our family of 1 cat and 1 dog we had no idea this poor cat was pregnant. She was skinny right up to her giving birth and she remains skinny to this day. So we were more than a little surprised when we learned that she had babies.

She gave birth to 4 cute wee babies. We had no idea how to raise kittens, not a clue. So being the 21st century man that I am, I took to the Internet. After a number of searches I found a bunch of varied and conflicting responses so it wasn't long before I became convinced that I could learn absolutely nothing more about raising cats. So, we then decided to take our cues from Molly and her baby girls.

They began to grow and soon were exploring their surroundings. We cordoned off an area so that they were easy for both us and Molly to keep track of. It wasn't long before we began finding little, tiny baby kitty poops in their little area. So we decided to put a small pan with kitty litter into their little area. Much to our chagrin, we saw Molly using the litter instead of going to her own. Being dumb humans we cleaned the litter and put the pan back in the area only to watch Molly go back and use it again.

Well, let it not be said that we can't take a hint so what did we do? We promptly emptied and cleaned it yet again. Molly proceeded to soil it once again after it was returned to its spot. We, being somewhat smart humans, decided that maybe Molly has a reason for using the small litter tray and didn't use it just because she physically needed to. Hurray for us humans, OK so we're dumber than cats. . . I'm not surprised by that.

So yes, dear readers, we finally caught on. Molly really did have a reason to do that and it wasn't just because she needed to go. Molly would physically put her babies in the litter, whether they needed to go or not. We still found little kitty poops in their little area because they were slow learners.

It wasn't long before the kitties began to climb over the physical barriers that kept them in one area. So we watched the kitties and had to pick up kitty poops in a couple of different corners of the living room. So we decided to put small pans of litter in those corners that they seemed to prefer. That was good but it still wasn't perfect yet but it was much better. It didn't long before Mommy Molly was dragging her babies into her large litter box. When that happened we decided the best way to help Molly was to remove the smaller pans, which we did. Things were not perfect, for about 2 weeks we continued to find little poops around in those corners but then it died off very quickly.

So, how did we litter train the kittens? We had a lot of luck and had a good mother cat in Molly. Mother cats know what they need to know to teach their children to use a litter box. We humans must learn to follow their leads.

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