Kitty go down the hoooole...

For the past month or so, Patrick and I have been in the midst of toilet training our two cats. We had been wanting to do it for a while now but everything we had read about it just seemed so cumbersome to me. And then one day I heard about the City Kitty and that night Patrick and I ordered it and hoped for the best. A life free of litter scattered on the bathroom floor? Yes please!!

We made the mistake of jumping right in and start using the City Kitty without any sort of preparation of our cats. They were used to relieving themselves in a box in the linen closet of the bathroom. Not two feet off the ground in the middle of the bathroom. The next morning, Patrick had the delight of waking up to find all the litter scooped out of the CK and our older cat, Calliope, peeing on the toilet seat. Not exactly what we had in mind. Patrick had been thinking that this would be easy, like magic, they would understand exactly what we wanted them to do. And Poof! They would be toilet trained. Not so much. And I now feel for my parents who had to toilet train me. At least this has given us a taste of how it will be having to do this with our future kiddos. Its definitely a big lesson in patience!

So, we had to back up and start by moving their litter box from the linen closet and putting it next to the toilet. Then, a little while later, on top of the toilet seat so that they could get used to hopping up there. Coming home to find the litter box wedged between the bathtub and the toilet with litter and poop spread out on the floor is just oh so fun!

So, once they got used to that, we placed the litter in the CK and put that between the toilet base and seat. Chloe caught on much faster than Calliope, who would try to hold it till one of us got home from work and would yowl while sitting in front of the linen closet. And once we sat her on the CK, she would finally go. It took much longer than we expected, but eventually, they got used to it as well.

So we cut the first hole and have been doing pretty well so far. At first, the cats decided to scoop all of the litter down the hole and into the toilet. It reminded me of that Tiny Toons cartoon where baby Plucky duck kept shoving toilet paper and anything else he could find down the toilet... "paper go down the hooooole, teddy go down the hooooole, Plucky go down the hooooole..." Every once in awhile I'll be in there when one of the cats is "occupied" and actually does her thing down the hole. But while I'm jumping up and down saying "good girl, you did it!" she's looking down the hole as if to say "where'd it go?"

They say the slower you go with each step, the easier it is for the cat in the long run, and thus easier on us. So it has been and will be baby...er... kitty steps for us for awhile.