Many people keep their feline family members happy, healthy and safe indoors, providing  plenty of nutritional food, fresh water, regular veterinary care, scratching posts, and clean litter boxes.  This is wonderful for the cats, the rest of the family, and the neighbors, too!

It's also a good idea to provide an indoor cat with "toys," which can be as simple as a crumpled-up paper ball.  And there's no substitute for a bit of daily human interaction, as well!  This can be in the form of petting, grooming, and/or playtime together, depending on your cats' preferences.  Even only fifteen minutes a day, if that's all the time you have, is good for the little cats you love!

People with indoor/outdoor cats many times realize, once their cats get older, that it would be best to "convert" them to be indoor-only cats.  Generally, this doesn't seem to result in any problems.  However, sometimes a cat who has lived mostly outdoors does not seem to want to use a litter box, even when the box is kept extra clean, and different brands of litter have been tried.

If you and your cat find yourselves in this situation, here's something you might want to try: put a couple of inches of cat litter in the clean litter box, then add a layer of regular potting soil on top.  (Of course, please BE SURE that it is pure soil, with NO added chemicals or insecticides!)

 The idea is that since your cat has been used to using soil outdoors, he or she will then more readily get into the habit of using the litter box, with the soil added in it.  If this works, chances are you may only have to add the soil for awhile, and your cat, once used to the litter box, hopefully will continue to use it with cat litter only, no soil needed.