I try to consider myself an optimist, some of the time. For the most part, I am truly a pessimist. I have a hard time putting positive spins on difficult situations. Since I seem to get myself into difficult situations, pretty regularly, I tend to be a little negative.
The only time I can honestly be 100% positive about something, is when it involves me doing less work, or making my job easier. I believe in the "work smarter, not harder" philosophy or as I put it "the being more efficient with my laziness" idea.
My family and I are avid animal lovers. We have two dogs and a cat who are part of our family. I've already discussed the dogs being trained and what a disaster that is. Now we get to discuss the cat.
If any of you have cats, you realize straight away that cats are not really trainable. Cats are cats and they seem to be happy with it, therefore you should be too. They do their own thing, whether you like it or not. About all you can train them to do is come running when they hear a can opener a mile away or use the cat box.
We have had our cat, Chu, for almost 8 years. She is a wonderful cat, we even believe she has some sort of magical healing ability. However, her wake up calls for food at 5 AM would be more wonderful if they had a snooze button. She does not appreciate being pushed away in the morning when she is hungry. Alarm clocks don't complain, they just shut up. Chu gets upset and becomes obsessed with waking your dead butt up.
The one complaint we have is the same as any other cat owner: cleaning the litter pan. Seriously, it's just gross. Plus, she decides that right after I am done scooping her daily deposits, she HAS to use it immediately after. Plus you know that if you have a dog, they like to help out, which is beyond disgusting.
This is where my optimism hit hard. I saw an add somewhere showing a cat using the toilet to go to the bathroom. (The picture was absolutely awful, may have scarred me for life, however the idea was brilliant! I wouldn't mind flushing a few deposits every once in awhile. Heck, I already do it for my 3 year old son, why not add a cat?!
I do my normal Google research and find a few products that guarantee results and what not. After discussing this with my husband, I decide to buy the product anyway. (By the way, my husband was not as thrilled with this idea as I was).
The product comes in the mail and I'm excited! Yay, no more scooping cat poo! Then I open the package and read the instructions...4 weeks of preparation, then 8 weeks until possible results!!! Optimism fading...
Preparation involves moving the already established litter box into the bathroom, right next to the toilet. Then over the next few weeks you change the litter to a flushable variety. Moving the litter box into the bathroom, did slow down and eventually prevent the dogs from helping out, which if nothing else, was worth it. However, the cat litter that gets flung outside the box is now being stepped on at 3 AM in the morning. Not to mention the strange experience of being on the toilet while the cat comes in and poos beside you. I begin to think if this is really worth it?
Now that Chu is switched over to flushable litter and is comfortable using the litter box in our bathroom, we get to move on to the actual toilet training. Yay!
First step involves raising the litter box slowly to the level of the toilet, so they get used to going to the bathroom at that height. 3 weeks later, she is now going to the bathroom at the same height as the people in the house.
Second step is to install the fake toilet insert onto the toilet. This step involves putting a plastic toilet bowl shaped litter box onto the toilet. This pretty much stops you from using this particular toilet for a few weeks. As the cat gets used to using the littler box on top of the toilet, you cut out rings in the plastic insert. Eventually they don't miss the litter being there and go in the toilet.
We didn't get past the litter box height. Our cat is rather set in her litter box ways. She in a few ways told me that she was refusing to use the people toilet and wasn't even going to consider life without her box. My optimism is now back at my normal level of non-existence.
However, I saw another do-it-yourself video on YouTube where you make an automatic cat feeder. Yay!
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