Reaching out to all toilet-trained cat owners: kitty won’t use toilet if it hasn't been flushed?

[ioan ilea]

Hi everyone! First time poster here. I just want to be upfront and say that I'm looking for feedback on a project I've been working on that I think may be helpful to others who have toilet-trained their cats. I hope that’s ok on these forums… I’m not trying to spam or sell anything, just looking for honest opinions on whether this would be useful to other cat owners

I trained my first cat to use the toilet years ago, and I learned early on that after he uses it, he won't use it again until it's flushed. It was pretty manageable then, aside from still needing the litter box when I leave the house for longer than a day. Then, last year, we got 2 more kittens, and I decided to train them too (what a great idea right?) Turns out, not one of them will use the toilet unless it has been flushed!! It has created an actual nightmare - we were flushing constantly, often running over just to check.. it was OK when someone is at home to flush once in a while, but if we both leave for the day, we come back to a clean-up situation. Needless to say, we brought back the litter box for when we needed to leave the house ... which made me think the whole point of toilet training them was pointless.

I know that toilet-training cats isn't very common, but I am wondering if it's just my cats that are picky, or if others have similar woes after toilet-training their cats?

Anyway - A few weeks ago I finally made an automatic flusher that takes care of the flushing. I am so happy with it, that I need to share this with others that might have this issue. It's a little sensor and a motor, programmed to wait 45 seconds until the coast is clear, so it won't scare off anyone using it. It has actually changed my life haha, we can leave the house without worry, and sleep without checking the toilet constantly. Occasionally you just hear a flush from the washroom - as if the cats are totally independent.

I shot a video of my little guy Freud using the device, you can see the sensor mounted on top of the tank. (pls excuse my poor editing skills).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IANflxGds4k

Thanks and all the best!

[Bbarb]

This had me in stitches, then I thought 'is this a leg pull?' Anyway I think its marvellous - can we have a tutorial on toilet training please?

[susand]

Barb, you can definitely toilet train a cat. A former work colleague of mine did it. You use training rings to put inside the bowl to get the cat used to it and then remove them once it’s got the idea.

I had a friend who went to someone’s house once and got the shock of her life when she walked into the bathroom to see a cat on the loo. She was so surprised she said “Sorry” and quickly walked out again, just like you would if you walked in on a human! She said he looked up at her with such an expression of indignation when she walked in that it seemed like the right response.

Ioan, your invention sounds marvellous. Maybe you could do some research to see if there are a lot of toilet using cats that have the same issue with flushing. If there are, you could team up with the manufacturers of the training rings to mass produce and market your devise.

[susand]

Actually Ioan, thinking on it, it might be something people might be interested in even if they have a cat that will re-use an un-flushed toilet. Having cat pee/poo sitting in the toilet bowl for hours is a factor which would put me off toilet training my cat and your devise would certainly interest me if I were thinking about training my kitty to use the loo.

[JasonDR]

Hi Ioan
Briliant idea to train them to use the toilet
Could you not train them to flush after
Only joking I must take my hat off to your ingenuity well done
Jason