By Lia Suzuki
My cat Kiku is the star of Toilet Train Cat Blog. Why? You guessed it! He's toilet trained! Yep, he uses that same white, porcelain, bathroom fixture that you and I use. You'll find no kitty litter (or should I say perhaps, "you'll smell no kitty litter") in my apartment.
So if you're like most people, you want to know how my cat learned to use the toilet. Well, I trained him to. That's how! Ok, for all of you who are thinking of toilet training cat, I'll spell it out in this article, step by step.
I'll begin at the beginning. First of all, when I adopted Kiku, he was but a young pup, er... kitten. He was 6 weeks old, to be exact. Everything I had read said that 6 weeks old was too young to begin toilet training a cat. Still, I made sure to position the kitty litter box right next to the toilet.
Kiku learned to use the litter box with absolutely no problem. I had read that the first thing to do was raise the litter box by about an inch or two every week, using newspapers or magazines. Kiku took to the litter box so well and seemed so unshakable and bold in so many ways, that I decided to start raising the litter box, in spite of his young age. But I made sure to progress with the training much more slowly and gradually than was recommended for more mature cats.
So up it went! I started collecting newspapers, bundling them, and taping the litter box on top of the bundle - about an inch or so every couple weeks. When the litter box had been at the same level as the toilet seat for a couple weeks, I removed it from the newspaper stack and secured it on the toilet seat with duct tape.
Once Kiku had a couple weeks to get used to that, I dumped the litter into a colander and set that inside the toilet bowl. (Ewww!) Oh well... During this time, the trick is to not replenish the litter as you normally would, but rather to allow the litter to gradually decrease. Finally, your cat is peeing into the empty colander. This may take anywhere from one week to three weeks.
It's important to point out that during this process, there were times that Kiku reverted to his old ways - or tried, anyway. He rebelled/freaked out and tried relieving himself in the litter box - the litter box which was no longer on the floor, next to the toilet. So there was a mess next to the toilet some mornings. There was even a period where Kiku seemed to be revolting, by peeing on the couch! When these things happened, I backed up the training. If you just go back one step, and stay there for a week or two, your kitty should come around...
The final step? Once your cat has been peeing into the empty colander for a week or two, ...take the colander away. Voila! your cat is now a toilet trained cat!
Lia Suzuki Lia Suzuki lives in Santa Barbara, California, and happens to own a toilet trained cat, named Kiku. Lia and Kiku share their living space with a German Shepherd named Tosh. By the way, "Tosh" is short for "Toshiro Mifune" and "Kiku" is short for "Kikuchiyo". If these names don't mean anything to you, comment on this article or email me, and I'll "put you in the know." |
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