Hi everyone,
My 8 month old kitten is using a pretty unusual place for her toileting habits.. she uses her litter tray really well, and goes outside, but sometimes at night she uses the dog's water bowl. Which is odd, and inconvenient/unhygienic for the poor dogs!

Would anyone be able to shed any light as to why she might be doing it? She recently had a visit to the vet for something unrelated and seems to be fine in health in every other way.

Thank you

Sound to me like she is doing it for a laugh. Your dogs need to teach her a lesson and take a dump in her bed.

Haha... that could be true to be honest!

sorry i know it must be annoying, but it did make me laugh. maybe pick up the dogs water bowl through the night, and put it down again in the morning. see if the kitten gets out of the bad habit

The other posters are correct, cats will toilet in nasty places to get revenge if they are ticked off. Just thank god she's not pooped in your bed because that would mean she was really cheesed off with you.

Haha, oh dear! No wonder she has a rather smug look on her face then.. I'm reluctant to move the water dish because the dogs won't have access to water. Do you think pulling her out and putting her on the litter tray when we catch her doing it would help?

If you can catch her doing it, then there is a sure-fire way to teach her not to - shoot her with a water pistol. They hate that, but it doesn't cause them any harm.

You have to do it WHILE they are doing the unwanted behaviour, because cats don't understand cause and delayed effect.

Seriously, our cat used to climb peoples trouser legs, and also went through a phase of clawing legs under the table at dinner. In both cases, a squirt in the face with the water pistol on 2 occassions were enough to stop the behaviour totally.

Our cat also went through a phase of crapping on the floor right NEXT TO her litter tray when she was a kitten. They sometimes take a while to get the hang of their toilet habits. We did move her into the litter mid-crap (she didn't like that) once, but she got the message.

try feedig her out of it for a few days and leave it in the same place ( move dogs water away slightly ) my kitten starten pooing next to the litter tray and was advised to feed him in that spot and it worked ... he stopped pooing there ! goood luck