Kitten Litterbox behavior

Question
My son found a kitten, she was approximately 5 weeks old when we brought her home.  I also have two other cats, male (about 3 years old) and female (11 years old). I merged them fairly successfully.  The kitten was showing promising progress with the litterbox.  But in the last week I have caught her using my plants for pooping.  I can't tell if she is peeing in them as well.  Is there a way to stop this?

Answer
Hi Kristan,

Kudo's to you for taking this baby in, and that is the key she is still very much a baby at 5 wks old I still consider them babies at even 12wks.  My kittens start litterbox training around this time and it is done entirely by the mama cat, I very rarely have to step in.  During the process there are misses here and there, she unfortunately did not have the benefit of her mom to teach her to use the box.  It does sound like she has the right idea though using a plant is more similar to what she'd have been using outside and the ground is much softer on her paws than the average litter.  There are a few things you can do to stop the behavior, but remember she is still quite young so may have a few accidents along the way.

First, cover the area around your plants with largish rocks.  This will prevent her from being able to dig.  Leave those on and see if she goes back to the litterbox. Along the same lines is a screening around the plant but it isn't always easy to do depending on the type of plant. If this does not work you need to do litterbox training 101, this involves putting her in a small area with the litterbox, a bathroom is usually best.  Here she is more likely to use the box as it is the most convenient to her.  After a few days of this you can start to let her out supervised for short periods of time and for now you should have litterboxes all over the house.  You can get small one's for about $3 and that's all you need or you can even use shallow cardboard boxes.  The bottom of a water bottle box is exactly the right size.  Babies this age have very small bladders and can not 'hold it' for very long so the closer a box the better to avoid accidents.  You need to take her to each of the boxes you have set up and scratch her paws in them so she knows where they are.  Gradually increase the amount of time she is out and the amount of supervision, this shouldn't take more than a week or so before she is using the boxes regularly.  

Another thing you can try is a litter called 'cat attract' it is guaranteed to work but I have never used it for babies in training.  I think it is more for adult problem pee'ers, not young one's who just haven't quite gotten it yet but if all else failts it's worth a shot.

Good luck!

Natoma