Cthulhu didn’t care. She hoped up and looked around, positioned herself, the started. The next thing that followed can be described as trickling water, except, obviously, it wasn’t water.
It’s official, the cats are toilet trained. Instead of the time defined by citikitty.com it took our cats about twice as long. Why? Well, perhaps it was due to the kitchen renovations. Add to that the two week vacation. And don’t forget a month long guest. The apartment was anything but consistent this summer.
In my opinion, that didn’t help things and Cthulhu pointed that out to us a number of times by peeing wherever she could – plastic (left around the apartment during the renovations), cardboard boxes (renovations), cat bed (this didn’t make any sense), a wicker basket of cat toys (another oddity), and a plant left outside (one word – dirt). In fact, it all started with the plant but we didn’t put the pieces together until we returned from our vacation.
The day evening we returned I placed an order for another citikitty training thing-a-ma-bob.
We almost gave up. Thank the thanks we didn’t.
Last night the training thing-a-ma-bob was put on the side and Cthulhu needed to go. She checked out the plastic’ness leaning against the wall then hoped up onto the toilet seat. Voila! The process is complete. Magneto followed a few moments later.
Summarizing the experience…
- Be sure your environment is static. Do not change things around during the toilet training. It’s a safeguard, that’s all. You do NOT want to deal with the hassle of cleaning cat urine.
- Take the extra time. If you think your cat(s) need another week on the rung, go for it. What’s the harm — one more week. It’s worth it.
- If you have two toilets you’ll be in heaven the whole time. With one toilet, two cats, and two people… Wow was it’s frustrating at times.
- Be prepared with the bust pan. The first month you will spend much of your time sweeping up the liter from the floor due to the scratch scratch scratching. It’s not fun, but them’z the breaks.
- You may need to trick the feline(s). They won’t go? Aw man! Try this… Get paper towels – long enough to be held taught under the toilet seat/the thing-a-ma-bob. Lift the two, put the paper towel down (covering the toilet), put the thing-a-ma-bob over the paper towel, and lastly the toilet seat. Show the cat(s) what you’ve done to make life happier. With the hole gone the cat(s) will soon use the toilet. Sure, there will be poo and/or wee on the paper towel but, remember, all that matters is the cat(s) used the toilet.
- Have you ever sat by a friend in need? Your nekko (cat) may need a little time now. Close the door to the bathroom and, well, chill. Next up… Positive reinforcement and a helping hand. Show the cat(s) the toilet, praise the kitten, kindly put the poof-o-fur on the toilet seat/thing-a-ma-bob. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. If he/she still won’t go, wait a while and try again. It may happen at 5 am. Remember, this is going to make life all the better in the long run.
Suggestions for improvement citikitty…
- Make the rungs smaller. After each rung change the cats avoided the toilet. If the rungs were smaller in size this would not have been the case.
And then. No more and then.