The Lazy Person's Litter Kwitter Training Method

[WitchyWoman]

i've been thinking about trying to toilet train the cats for awhile and now that I'm adding a 4th cat to the house, definitely wanted to reduce the amount of daily scooping. My intent is not to eliminate all litter boxes although it would be nice if that happened.

I ordered the Litter Kwitter and read the instructions, watched the video, and read the LK forum. I am simply too lazy to go through all of the recommended steps. So I put the LK on the powder room toilet, added litter from one of the litter boxes and also put in a tiny piece of pee clod. For 1 week all three cats dug around on the LK. When I'd go to investigate, whoever was in there would jump down looking guilty. They were confused about whether or not is was ok for them to be on the toilet. I praised whoever was investigating.

This is week 2 of the LK installation and someone peed in it this morning! I have no idea which cat did it and will try to be more vigilant and subtle in my spying to find out who is using it.

Taji & Juba both like to perch on the top of the litter box and pee & poop down into it so I figured one or both of them would like using the LK. Good kitty, smart kitty. I'm so excited that my laziness is paying off

 

[Mantha Meow]

I plan on trying this once we all get in the new house! Kinsler ALWAYS pees with all four paws on the little 4" space at the front of the box so the box gets a huge clump of pee right at the beginning. I just hate the thought of them trying to walk into the box and BAM PEE BALL! I will be interested to hear how this goes for you and your fur babies!!

 

[John Popp]

Because we had a problem pee'r, we tried lots of different things. We also observed quite a lot of different litter box behavior and a pretty good idea of what caused things like perching on the edge or complete litter box aversion. 3 urine balls or other land mines were about as much as they would tolerate before exhibiting different behavior, such as perching on the ledge.

Anyway, just wanted to point out that the perch method of using the litter box is a learned behavior because they are less than happy about the condition of their litter box from time to time. Of course they all have different thresholds and some cats won't have a problem with a dirty litter box while others have reservations if there is single incident of soiling.

I'd certainly love them to use a toilet, just wish I could ask them what they thought about it.

 

[Mantha Meow]

Thanks for the info John! He has used it that way as long as I can remember but I will definitely try keeping it even cleaner and see if he stops!

 

[WitchyWoman]

Anyway, just wanted to point out that the perch method of using the litter box is a learned behavior because they are less than happy about the condition of their litter box from time to time.

This is not true in all instances. Two of mine did the perch from their arrival home. I've been through several types of boxes and litters and it makes no difference. I've experimented with the depth of the litter to see if that made any difference. They do it regardless of whether the box contains waste and the depth of the litter appears to have bearing. They enthusiastically dig in the boxes and scatter litter everywhere when covering up their deposits and I use large sterilite boxes to attempt to contain their dig & fling behavior to no avail.

Since they appear to have come preprogrammed to perch, I figured it wouldn't take too much effort to get them using the toilet. Just wish I would have done it years ago.

 

[Rafiki]

I tried with my previous cats. My slim agile female had no problems but my large clumsy male however.... Well, lets just say that I was just a few days away from removing the litter tray completely. There was only about 1 /4 cup of litter there. He jumped up, slipped and fell into the toilet and the litter dumped on top of him and stuck to the top of his soggy head. I heard an outraged yowl as he scampered down the hallway to the bed. He promptly jumped up and pee'd all over my husband who unfortunately was sleeping in the bed at the time. Hubby refused to continue with the experiment.

 

[John Popp]

Hey Deborah, not suggesting they didn't come that way just that they aren't predisposed to be a perch pee'r or for that matter predisposed to use a litter box. Sometimes it's if the box is soiled and other times they don't like the vulnerability of being inside the box. Perhaps it something Mama taught them, just in our household perch peeing was always an announcement of "Hey Dude, a little help here? Can you clean this thing up so I don't need to act like I'm in the circus?"

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

I tend to think it is just a general aversion to stepping in what they are using as toilet... and maybe it is liking some stability and the edge of the litterbox is stable while the litter shifts around. I don't so much agree that it is a dirty box that drives them to use the edge of the box to balance on. I think a dirty box drives some cats to use anything other than the box instead...

 

[John Popp]

Mine is a small sample size, but two of my boys would sniff and maybe dig before making a decision as to how they were going to engage the litter box be it the edge or all fours in the litter. That pretty much came to an end when I went to the larger litter boxes. I only had one carryover participants before and after the change to the sterilite boxes and filling them with 80lbs of litter as opposed to the 20lbs that were in the former boxes.

Anyway, their bathroom habits in captivity are an exercise in psychology that oft leaves me baffled. Using the toilet is a pretty good trick if you have a cat willing to play along.

 

[MM3]

I had planned months before, bought the kitty citi kit. Then when kitty arrived so so sick I didn't choose to stick to the plan of tiolet training. Now that she is healthy and can certainly handle the challenge, I'M not sure. If kitty had been tiolet trained I would not of known she was eating litter because she was using the tiolet. I'm torn between training and not. It is a chore to scoop but it is also a window to what's going on health wise.