Toilet Training Your Cat

Have you seen Meet The Parents and now you want a toilet trained cat also? That’s what happened to me. I got sick of always emptying the litter box and getting bits of litter stuck to my feet. I decided to toilet train my cat. It was surprisingly easy, although there are a few inconvenient steps. I ultimately found that it was one of the better decisions I have made.

You can go from litter box to toilet in just 8 easy steps. Pay attention to your cat and take note of whether or not you are moving through the steps to fast.

1. Move the litter box next to the toilet and show your cat where it is. Let a few days pass before altering his restroom location again.

2. After a few days have passed, start raising the litter box slowly. Since I am a student I used my old textbooks from subjects I vowed never to touch again. I would increase the height of the box by putting one 1-inch textbook under the box ever 2 days until the bottom of the litter box was even with the toilet seat. After a while I would just put a cardboard box underneath to replace some of the textbooks. They were getting unstable. My cat was about six months old when we did this so he adjusted to the changes in height very easily. If your cat is older you may want to raise it slower if you notice them in distress. Keep the toilet lid down so there are no slipping accidents when they use the toilet lid to climb into the litter box.

3. Remove the books and place the litter box on the closed toilet lid. Leave it there for 3 days.

4. Now you need to find a metal bowl, never to be used by you again, that you will rest inside the toilet and fill with 2 cups of litter. Show your cat that the litter box was replaced with a metal bowl inside the toilet.

5. Watch your cat as he goes to the bathroom. He will start with all four paws inside the bowl. I started with the front legs and would place them on the toilet bowl rim. Every time he would put them back I would place them back on the rim and praise him. I then started with his back feet once he got used to putting his front feet on the rim. The back feet were the most difficult as it was very awkward for him. I would always praise him though. After awhile he would come and get me to follow him into the bathroom. It was very strange at first but it turned out to be very helpful because he would let me know when I needed to watch him.

6. Every two days, after his foot placement was correct, I started decreasing the cat litter by ¼ of a cup. It will start to smell really bad so you will need to clean out the bowl after each use.

7. When there is about ¼ cup of litter in the bowl, you should empty it and start filling the bowl with ¼ cup water every 2 days. If your cat stops using the bathroom in the toilet you should go back to cat litter in the bowl and start all over.

8. Now that you have water in the bowl the smell will not be as bad. Once you reach 2 cups of water in the bowl, it can be removed and you have a toilet trained cat.

By Staff Writer Trish Harding