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.

The Invention of Shame

My cats do not like to be interrupted when they are using the toilet litter-box. With their real litter box they had no shame... just plopping down no matter who was around and doing their business so everyone could see. But somehow the transition to the toilet has taught them shame.

If I walk in to the bathroom while one of them is on the toilet he'll pretend he wasn't doing anything... just scratch around for a minute and then hop off.

They have also become possessive of the toilet. They seem offended if any humans want to use it, and watch that person wide-eyed until they get kicked out of the bathroom.

My cats have issues...

Day 2

The cats seem to have learned how to use the toilet-litter box. But Toby's recent on purpose "accident" has me worried. Last night I had several nightmares about my cats doing gross things in inappropriate places. However, this morning I woke up and they had both used the toilet-box AND not thrown litter everywhere.

Also, I have discovered a new potential issue. Bear's 20 minutes of "covering" involve him twisting back and forth, scratching various things in my bathroom. For example, the toilet seat and lid, the wall next to the toilet, my bathtub, my shower curtain, the toilet paper holder, etc. And Bear has no balance. None. In this process I watched him fall off the toilet. Twice. Both times he got back up and kept scratching. I'm pretty sure if I succeed in toilet training him he's going to fall into the toilet frequently.

The Aftermath

Last night at 3:00am Toby woke me up, apparently to inform me he had pooped on a pillow.

Thanks Toby.

Bear had figured out the new toilet-litter box. However, since the pan is so shallow, and since Bear spends an average of 20 minutes "covering" his poo, I woke up to a bathroom covered in poo and Swheat Scoop brand litter.

Awesome. Even when they do it right it's gross.

The Set-Up

One night at beer tasting party, a friend of a friend pulled out her iphone and we all crowded around to watch a video of her cat pooping in a toilet. I do not know what prompted her to show this video. I'm pretty sure that there's something about having a cat that uses the toilet that makes you want to share videos of the cat's bowel movements with near strangers. But there we were. 12 of us. Watching her cat poo.

My first thought was... there is something seriously wrong with us. My second thought was... I wonder if I can teach my cats to do this. So I went online and bought the stuff. And then spent two weeks coming to terms with the idea of sharing a toilet with two cats. And now I am ready to begin the experiment.

Now according the the cat potty training system I'm using, training a cat to use the toilet consists of turning your toilet into a litter box and then once a week removing a section from the middle of the "litter box" so that they gradually adjust to using the toilet. This is the pan:

I think if I designed it I would make the holes a little rounder. This pan seems awkwardly suggestive.

The process requires flushable litter, so I went to a neighborhood store and got Swheat Scoop (a wheat based cat litter).

This may have been a mistake as when I poured it into the pan, Bear started to eat it.

Seriously... my cat tried to eat the litter.

The Subjects of My Experiment

To fully appreciate the risk I am taking in toilet training my cats, it's important to know a few things about them.

1) They eat everything, especially carbs. When they were kittens they stole half a baguette of Semifreddi's french bread and hid it in an empty room for two weeks.
2) They're not that bright.
3) They each create more waste than dogs twice their size.
4) They spend an average of 20 minutes a day scratching the side of the litter box "covering" that waste.



Bear is the fat one. Also the dumb one. He fell out a window when he was a kitten, and hasn't been right ever since.







Toby is slightly more intelligent, though significantly more passive aggressive and angsty.

The Back Story

Two and a half years ago I decided to adopt two kittens. Well, I decided to adopt one, but somehow I got talked into taking two.

This should not have been a big deal, not only did I have two roommates to help me take care of them, I had grown up in the country and my family never had fewer than three cats and two dogs at any given time. But there is a serious difference between country cats and city cats. Country cats poo outside... city cats do their business in your home. Frequently. And excessively. And then when they are done, they kick litter everywhere.

Now, two and a half years after adopting the kittens I am living on my own, working long days, and a slave to their bathroom habits.

And so I have decided to take my life back.

I am toilet training my cats.