Cat Toilet Training

	Toilet training your cat
	Automatic Self-Cleaning litter boxes

Toilet training your cat. Teaching a not-so-young kitty new tricks!

Tofu sleeping with her favorite mouse.

My wife and I, freshly newlywed, embraced the new responsibilities that came with marriage -a new house, mowing the lawn, shared bills, taking out the garbage.

When we adopted Tofu, our 2-year old gray and white tabby, attending to the litter box was one of the more undesirable tasks on our growing list of daily to-do's.

A unique inspiration came by way of Meet the Parents. The movie, staring Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro, featured Jinxy, a cat that was toilet trained and could flush, too!

Imagine that!

No litter. No scooping. No mess! Could this really work?

Hollywood obviously has its fair share of fantasy, but I was enamored with the idea of having Tofu follow in the paw-steps of famous Jinxy.

The CityKitty kit.

My internet research led to a number of cat toilet training products and aids that nearly guaranteed toilet training success. One product in particular, CitiKitty, a unique toilet mounted litter box that gradually gets your cat acquainted to your porcelain throne and to the proper positioning needed to achieve cat toilet training success, caught our attention.

We purchased the CitiKitty from Amazon.com for approximately $30. The plastic litter pan was very thick and sturdy and fit over our toilet rim perfectly. The accompanying instructions were extremely well detailed and provided guidelines for the entire training process.

Filling the City Kitty tray with flushable iltter.

Before fitting the CityKitty tray over our toilet, every few days we moved her regular litter box a little closer to the toilet. Once the box was located at the base of the toilet, we began raising it with a new telephone book every few days until it was at the same level of the toilet seat.

Once Tofu had the climb to her litter box mastered, we placed the CityKitty tray over the toilet and filled it with a flushable litter. (We recommend Swheat Scoop, a natural wheat litter that clumps and is easily flushable.)

Over the next several days, we spied Tofu exploring the CityKitty tray. After we felt she was completely familiar with its presence, we removed her regular litter box, took a scoop of slightly soiled litter and placed it in the City Kitty tray. We left the phone books in place to ease her ascent, but found that after a few days she was able to jump directly on the toilet tray.

Tofu getting acquainted with the toilet.

With a little effort and patience, Tofu was completely transitioned to using the toilet tray! My wife and I were enthusiastic!

After a week of successfully using the new toilet mounted tray, we removed the first perforated section of the tray. This left a small hole in the center of the tray that would allow some litter to fall into the toilet. Tofu had no trouble adjusting to the sound of stuff dropping into the water below.

Over the course of the next 3 weeks, we gradually removed the perforated rings from the City Kitty tray. As the surface of the tray became smaller, Tofu adjusted by standing on the toilet seat. The stance was perfect and we increasing found that her waste was landing inside the toilet instead of on the tray!

The Citi Kitty tray trimmed down.

We trimmed the last ledge of the City Kitty tray down to a small 7 inch section. Every few days, we added less litter to the tray, until there was none. With no litter in the tray, there was some anxiety as we waited to see if the absence of litter would deter her from using the toilet.

We were relieved (no pun intended) when we spotted Tofu trickling into the toilet, despite there being no litter in the tray! We also noticed that she would still go through the motions of covering her waste by pawing the toilet seat. Some instinctual habits are hard to break.

We would love for this story to end successfully, we can’t.

Tofu reliably used the toilet for awhile but little mishaps happened from time to time. Sometimes, her aim would be a little off and we’d find little “treasures” on the edge of the toilet seat.

Since this was a bathroom in use and we had guests over fairly often, we had no choice but to frequently clean and disinfect the seat and the toilet. This is where the trouble began. After each cleaning, Tofu became less likely to use the toilet. Our guess is that the cleanings removed all familiar scent or may have even introduced undesirable scents that drove her away. We experimented with milder cleaning products, but to no avail.

Suddenly, my dirty running sneakers and potted plants became her preferred toilets. We struggled to get her back to the toilet, but this only led to frustration on our part and increased accidents on her’s. After our trials and tribulations with toilet training, we decided to use an automatic litter-box (Litter-Robot – a great product.)

Regardless of our end result, we highly recommend the City Kitty product and it is a great training tool. In many aspects, we did successfully train Tofu to use the toilet. In the end, the allure of other tempting spots and our constant cleaning of the bathroom made the toilet a less suitable and comfortable location for her to go.

Notes:

The toilet training process will be messy. Litter easily ends up out of the tray.
City Kitty is ideal if you have a second bathroom that can be devoted to the training process.
Take the steps slowly and have lots of patience. Once you remove a ring from the City Kitty tray, you can’t go back.
Encourage your cat after every successful use of the toilet tray.
Once you’ve successfully trained your cat, consider getting an automatic toilet flusher. City Kitty recommends Technical Concepts “AutoFlush for Tank Toilet Unit”

Resources:

Cat Toilet Training Solutions

Misc Resources