An elderly couple were on the verge of giving up on their 3 month old male Tabby when they booked a consultation through our web page. "Jimmy" was 5 weeks old when they rescued him from a cardboard box at the supermarket, where he was with his litter... "FREE TO A GOOD HOME." He was the most friendly and appealing to the retired couple, so they took him home, stopping on the way at a pet store to get supplies the would need. Never having had a feline companion pet before, they bought everything the pet store staff recommended; i.e., litterbox and cat litter, food bowl and a bag of dry kitten food, water bowl and a Kitty-Bed.

After 8 frustrating  weeks, they were still cleaning up urine and poop in various rooms in the house, even though Jimmy would use the litter box first thing every morning. Most of his "accidents" happened during the night or when the couple left him alone. When they were home  Jimmy stayed close to them and went to his litter box, which was in the laundry room next to the kitchen, where Jimmy's food bowl was kept full at all times. They had disciplined the kitten when at the soilage by using the old "nose-in-it" and scolding technique, which only made Jimmy stop eliminating in front of them. He was also becoming hand-shy when
they reached to pet and stroke him.

After our initial fact-finding, we were able to point out some immediate steps that would help them, which included feeding him on a schedule of three meals per day by splitting his current daily intake into three equal amounts. They quickly understood the importance of using the cat's natural gastric reflex (eat/then eliminate) to help control accidents and enable them to shoo Jimmy to his litter box and praise the elimination inside the box, whereas prior to this, they had been praising him in the kitchen and had even given him "Kitty treats" there.

We also suggested they bring Jimmy's bed into the bedroom and place in down next to a warm,  inside wall, to make sure the winter nights didn't give him a chill. To back up these changes, we sent them the BehavioRx Instructions, "Housetraining - Cats and Kittens," suggesting they study and follow the directions faithfully.

Two weeks later, they phoned to say Jimmy was doing great.