Bear's Golden Shower

The cats have decided the toilet belongs to them. And though one of them (my guess is Toby) refuses to poop on the damn thing, they have both decided that this toilet is their toilet. I can no longer leave the bathroom door open when I pee because I end up with an angry cat in my lap, staring indignantly at me.

But Jon is a man. He does not have to worry about an angry cat in his lap because he pees standing up, like a man. And he does not shut the bathroom door. Because it's more manly to leave it open. Apparently.

So a few nights ago, Jon went to use the toilet, like a man. And Bear got curious and possessive, like a cat. And Bear is dumb. So Bear stuck his head up over the side of the toilet bowl. Jon was not paying attention and didn't notice the cat-head slowly moving upward until it was too late.

From the other room I hear Jon shout "Oh My God!!!!" Bear bolted  from the bathroom and ran to me, frantically trying to rub his head on my feet. Jon was close behind with a roll of toilet paper shouting, "Oh my god, I peed on your cat!" It occurred to me that my cat was trying to use my feet as toilet paper, and so I ran away, jumping onto the kitchen counter where he couldn't reach me. Finally Jon chased him down and wiped him off.

Bear hid in the corner by the front door the rest of the night.

The Prince of Darkness and Poop

So far, today sucks.

First it is Valentine's Day, which means I'm already a little on edge. I have never much liked Valentine's Day, it's one of those holidays which creates a lot of expectation with no justification. Flowers are nice, but not to fulfill some artificial obligation. I can only watch so many romantic comedies before I want to shake Meg Ryan until she stops being so neurotic. And god knows I don't need another white teddy bear holding a giant red heart that says "I Wuv You." (Side-note, why are Valentine's teddy bears always white? Aren't polar bears supposed to be pretty vicious?)

Second, I'm starting to feel a little ill and had trouble getting up this morning.

Third, Toby is the devil. Seriously, he's like a little grey Lucifer.

It is 8:30. I need to get to work. I'm standing in the bathroom applying eye liner, and Toby starts wailing. These gut-wrenching cat sobs, like he's being torn apart. At first I think that he just needs some alone time with the toilet box, so I leave him alone in the bathroom. He follows me, still meowing pitifully. So I pet him for a while. And he purrs and stops whining.

After a few minutes I think it's safe for me to continue getting ready. So I walk into the other room to iron my pants. Toby is not happy with me. From the kitchen I hear him starting to scratch at my bed. I run into the other room, just to catch him mid-poo. I shout at him and, without thinking, grab him by the scruff and run him into the bathroom.

Here's the thing about a pooing cat. Just because he's 4 feet in the air does not mean he stops pooing. After throwing tabby Satan into the bathroom, I look back to see a trail of little round cat poos from my bed to the bathroom.

I don't think Toby's "accident" had anything to do with the potty training, other than he doesn't like it. He's just an asshole. But the toilet training, combined with my jackass of a cat may just be too much for me to cope with.

(Don't judge my drawing too much, this was done during my lunch break.)

If I Succeed....

When I was about 10, my father and I went to visit my paternal grandmother in Madera for some event, the details of which I have long forgotten about. What I do remember is that midway through the event I excused myself to go use her restroom. Only to find that the toilet was clogged. Though my initial reaction was to just walk away, there were two reasons that I could not do this, 1) I really needed to pee and, 2) everyone at the event would assume that I had clogged the toilet, since I was the last one to use the restroom. There was no plunger in sight, so I approached my grandmother and quietly announced that someone else had clogged the toilet. To which she responded:

"If you clogged the toilet, just say so. Don't blame it on someone else."
"No, no, no," I explained, "it was like that when I got there."

At this point one of my three aunt's asked what the problem was.
"Your niece has clogged the toilet and is trying to blame it on someone else."
"Nonono, it was not me."
"Honey, don't be ashamed of it," my favorite aunt said.
"It's much worse to lie about it," another aunt chimed in.
"We don't like liars in this family," my grandma stated.
My youngest aunt had been sitting quietly through the conversation, glass of wine in hand. Suddenly she chimed in: "You need to flush twice if it's that big."

At this point I was nearly in tears. To be perfectly honest, if I had clogged the toilet, I would probably lie about it. But I hadn't. It was not my fault. It was one of the people in this room, one of the many people looking at me with judgment in their eyes.
"Ididn'tclogthetoiletandyou'reallreallymean. And I have to pee!!!"

Finally at this point my father stepped in and I was rescued.

The point of this story? Assuming I succeed in training the cats to use the toilet, I will spend the rest of their lives having to explain to my friends that it's Bear and Toby's fault. The toilet is not clogged, and I did not forget to flush. It was the cats.

Step Two (The First Hole)

Despite rumors to the contrary I have not given up on the toilet training experiment. However, I fell behind in my blog due to the cats unforeseen reaction to me prematurely moving on to Step 2.

After my previous post the cats were doing well. There was still the occasional accident outside the toilet, but that seemed to have more to do with the fact that I work over 8 hours a day and I have two big cats who use the litter box frequently.

So I decided to remove the first section. This was a gross process and I will spare you the details.



The flesh tone of the litter only makes the shape of the hole more inappropriate.

The cats did not like the new hole, and lashed out at me in the only way they knew how... by pooping on my bed and peeing in a pile of freshly washed laundry.

Needless to say, the cats have not been allowed in my bedroom since we started Step 2.

After a few days they warmed up to the hole. While there are still accidents, those accidents are primarily limited to a spot on the floor just in front of the toilet. And if the bath mat is in the way, the cats are very considerate and lift it out of the way before they poo on my floor.

The accidents are also becoming more limited as their aim improves. About 1/6 of the time, the cats make it directly in the hole, meaning that the other cat is willing to use the litter.

As awkward as it sounds, it's incredibly gratifying to simply flush my cats poo.

Fatty McFatterson

Two days ago I reached what I hope will be the low point of the potty-training experience.

I had turned off my alarm in my sleep, so I woke up suddenly, threw on clothes and ran out the door. On my way out the door I noticed one of the cats had had an accident in the former litter box corner, but I was already late and taking the time to clean it up would result in me missing the next bus.

I flew out the door and had a disastrous day at work followed by a work happy hour where everyone left early, so another attorney and I chugged two beers and caught the bus home. Now the problem with chugging two beers and leaving is that by the time I got home I really needed to pee. And so I ran from the bus stop to my front door, bolted up the stairs and made it to my bathroom. Just to discover that though one of my cats had used the toilet-box, the other had pooed in front of the toilet in a fit of passive aggressive angst.

And so I took the longest pee of my life almost in tears looking at the disaster that had become my bathroom. It was time to end the experiment, this was too much.

At that moment Bear paraded back and forth past the door to the bathroom. Bear with his fat body and tiny head. Except his tiny head was stuck in a pink bag of cat treats that he had stolen from my cupboard. After a couple blind turns he stumbled into the door frame, dislodging the pink bag and causing the last few treats to hit the ground. He pounced on them eagerly, as though he hadn't eaten in days.

This is why his nickname is Fatty McFatterson. Or Sir Chubby von Weighsalot.

So I cleaned up their mess and decided to wait one more week, at least until next Friday when I leave for my company retreat.

Descent into Madness

My cats are taunting me.

For two days, there were no accidents. It was fantastic. I was so excited! Soon I would be able to commence the actual cat potty training. It was finally happening! I imagined a future with no litter box. I imagined my cats using the toilet like humans (I need better fantasies, I know this.)

And then one of them had another accident. On the bathroom floor. What a jerk!

And the countdown is restarted. One more week. 7 more days.

How hard is it to not poop on the floor for 7 days! I mean.. all you have to do is repeatedly not poop on the bathroom floor.

Oh well... wish me luck!

Accidents

I am starting to question the wisdom of this plan.

I have to wait one week after the cats stop having accidents before I can take the first hole out of the training tray. But Toby insists on going to the bathroom in the corner where the litter box used to be.

And last night the cats pulled the bag of litter over and created their own litter box on the floor. My cats are nasty.

Fortunately today they've been too lazy to have any more accidents.

And now for your enjoyment, pictures of Bear scratching random things and covering my bathroom with litter.