bah!

le chat was meowing at me when i came home tonight... jumping up and digging in the litter, jumping down... but she wouldn't just do it. so I closed her in the bathroom. within 5 min she was done... on the freaking rug! I know that I need to get new cat litter because this is just NOT working. I just haven't had time to go find it..they don't have any other kinds at my local grocery store.

note to self

successful pee in the setup tonight.. 10 p.m.

dang it!

so i thought i figured out that le chat just didn't like the feline pine. Now even with more clay litter mixed in, she did another poo on the floor when i was not home. as soon as I cleaned it up, within 5 or 10 min she peed in the set up with no problems. where's my compliance, le CHAT!?!?!??!

only 2 hours later...

I put about 1/2 cup of clay based litter in the litter container with the feline pine litter. She pooed in it already, and no wayward turds! They all landed exactly in the tiny mound of clay based litter. I guess she's fine with the litter container...it's the litter that she is unhappy with....

i knew this would happen

I went away for the weekend and had a friend (thanks, LBJ!) check in on Le Chat each day. I received word on Saturday that she pooed on the throw rug on the floor. When I got home this morning (Monday) there was a poo on the floor and 2 pee spots! doh! pee spots on the floor are VERY rare and so I am a bit disappointed that we have to take a few steps back to get the ball rolling in the right direction again. I think I'll try adding some more clay cat litter to the container and reduce the amount of feline pine litter..... she still doesn't seem to be too excited about the switch to flushable litter.

the story continues...it's december 07

Ok, so Le Chat was doing well with the litter container in the toilet. I didn't do my research, and decided that i needed to start reducing the amount of litter. Each time, we would get down to just a dusting of clay litter in the bowl, and she would start doing her poo on the throw rug right next to the toilet. Then, I thought maybe she was mad that the pee wasn't soaked up with the small amount of litter, so I tried making a small hole. That didn't change her behavior and only allowed her to dump a bunch of clay litter in the toilet. (shhhhh, don't tell my landlord)....luckily, my toilet kept working. It was time for me to leave for a week for the holidays, so I just switched back to a bowl with no holes and plenty of litter. My roommate reported that there were no accidents with that setup while I was gone.



In January, I realized that I needed a new plan. I finally started doing a little more research and decided that I needed to get some flushable litter. I gradually started switching to Feline Pine. Le Chat was not pleased at first, and had a few accidents and started pooing only once every other day instead of once per day. She had only ONE peeing on the floor incident, and it was also on the poo throw rug (I cleaned it after every accident). Finally, she was consistently using the flushable litter in the litter container placed in the toilet. I built a "litter damn" using a plastic cup and a bunch of electrical tape and placed it in the 2 inch hole that I had previously made in the sitz bath container. I think she held out for 3 days before finally using the new setup, but it was success!! I also joined the yahoo group, Cats T-Training, which gave me more ideas and hope that we really will be able to achieve a litter-free lifestyle!

We have gradually progressed to a hole with a 4 inch diameter. We have been there for one week with no accidents so far... almost time to enlarge the hole. I can't wait for her "business" to start going directly in the toilet!!

aha!

Ok, I know I haven't finished where I left off, but I think I discovered something. Le Chat has been sort of skittish lately as we progress with our setup. I think there is about a 5 inch hole in the sitz bath right now. When I cut it to that size, she was holding it and only going every other day or even once every 2 days.... BUT she went around 5 am today and then again around 7 pm. Each time, I noticed that there happened to be some toilet paper floating below the hole and "obstructing" the view of the clear water. Perhaps it makes her more comfortable? I am going to try to always have a sheet of toilet paper floating to see if it makes a difference!! Keep up the good shatting, Le chat!

welcome, self!

Well, this is my first blog ever. Am I doing it right? I created this blog to tell the story of toilet training my cat: Le Chat.

She really is a good little kitty. She's about 5 years old. My roommate told me that he had a friend that successfully trained her cat, so I decided to give it a try. I watched some videos on youtube to get an idea of where to start.

So I believe it was early November, 2007. I moved the litter box right next to the toilet.
A week later, I elevated the entire box by about 1.5 inches. Week by week, I raised the litter box until the top of it was level with the toilet. I think it was the middle of week 3 when my (human) toilet seat broke. So I bought myself a new one and taped the old one to her litter box. She was a little weirded out and meowed at it, but she never went outside of the box. Not even once!



Finally it was time to move the litter into the toilet. This required a different container: a sitz bath. I cut the bumps off the sitz bath so that I put the toilet seat down on top of it, and filled it with litter. I am a bit of an idiot, so I was still using clay-based NON-flushable litter at this point.




She was doing well with the litter container inside the toilet.

I will continue with the story later. I am tired.