I Gave Up

So it's been five months since we adopted Alice. She is a loving, sweet, angel of a kitty and Elijah and I adore her. As many of you probably already know, I had high hopes of toilet training our kitty when we first got her.

At first everything seemed to be going well. Her litter box went right next to the toilet and she used it. I raised the litter box gradually until it was level with the toilet and she was fine with that, too. I duct taped her box to the toilet seat, she had no problems. I exchanged her litter box for the training rings made by Citi Kitty and that was fine.

Then I had to send her in to the vet to be spayed. That whole fiasco is in another post. But the short end of it is that Alice was so loopy from the meds when she got home she couldn't make it to the toilet, so she had an accident in the living room. And as anyone who has owned cats before knows, once a cat has an accident in a spot it's hard to convince them that it's not okay to continue going in that spot.

I had to completely clean, sanitize, and deodorize my carpet and even squirt Alice with water a couple times to convince her that the carpet under the computer desk was not an alternative cat box.

Back to toilet training.

As instructed, I gradually started to remove the rings from the toilet training aid. We were nearly done, we had only one ring left to go. Then one day I heard a loud BANG from the bathroom and Alice streaked out like a white blur.

What had happened was this. When she was done doing her business (in the toilet like a good kitty) Alice was scratching and pawing all over as if to cover it up. When she pawed at the toilet lid her claws must have hooked around the edge of it and she'd pulled it down on top of herself! The resulting whack and loud bang as the lid crashed down frightened her. She was convinced after that happened that the toilet was no longer a safe place to potty.

More accidents. More cleaning, sanitizing, deodorizing, and squirting kitty with water.

I had to go back a lot of steps after that. I put her litter box back on the floor next to the toilet and started raising it again, trying to give her a chance to forget the whole toilet lid incident. I taped the toilet lid in the upright position to prevent that from happening again.

Thankfully the Citi Kitty system comes with a spare set of training rings in case something like this happens and you need to repeat steps. I got her back to going on the toilet and we were part way through taking the rings out when Elijah and I went up north for the Fourth of July and a family reunion. I asked some friends to look after Alice, assuring them that she would probably be fine and not have any accidents, she'd been accident free for a while. I did leave an extra bag of litter and her litter box just in case, though.

Half way through the vacation we received a phone call. Our toilet had clogged and Alice, not liking the situation and also stressed because her family was missing, had started using the living room carpet again.

Back to square one.

When I got home I ordered another Citi Kitty training system. It only comes with one extra set of rings and this would be our third try.

I got her back on the toilet and slowly started taking the rings out again. But, even though there was nothing obviously wrong she started rebelling. We'd get half way there and she'd start going #2 in the corner of the bathroom. I tried and tried to convince her, but she would only pee in the toilet.

It got to the point where she started going in her food dish. That's when I decided to call it quits. Maybe someday. Maybe when we move. But not now. Alice really doesn't want to use the toilet. So I started looking for a permanent cat box.

What I found is pretty neat. I'd say it's the next best thing to having a toilet trained cat. It's called the CatGenie.

I was a little skeptical at first. I've had experience with the LitterMaid and I know how well that doesn't work. The rake rusts, the motor breaks down, it misses pieces, you still have to buy litter, you still have to deal with the smell, and you end up having to spend a fortune on the little plastic cartridges that catch the waste.

But the CatGenie doesn't work like that. It does scoop for you (similar to the lItterMaid), but it flushes the cat product out of the house so you don't deal with the odor. It even washes, sanitizes, and dries the litter, which is made of a lot of tiny reusable plastic particles instead of clay. So instead of buying bags and bags of cat litter, I have a small box of extra granules to replenish the ones that happen to get tracked out of the CatGenie. I will need to continue buying the sanitizing solution But it's not terribly expensive and the cartridges last about four months each.

I've read a lot of reviews on this thing. Some of them great, and some of them terrible. It seems like the people who buy it either love it or hate it. I was going to give up on the idea but I wanted to figure out why the reviews were so polarized. If this thing really worked it would be great! After some sleuthing I figured it out. They had two models. Their first one, the CatGenie 60, had a couple design flaws. Those ones had the terrible reviews. Then the company came out with the CatGenie 120. They fixed all the design problems and added some new features. These ones had the great reviews! Ah, dilemma solved.

I've had mine for about three days and I only have two complaints. First, the water hose leaked. This cat box connects to a cold water line, either in your laundry room or bathroom. The hose on mine had a slow leak, but I was able to fix that by tightening the connection at the back of the unit. Also I'm not terribly impressed with the customer service. I tried calling them but got no answer. Then I tried e-mailing them, it's been three days and still no response. Other than that, everything is going fine. Alice has taken to it like a champ and I'm looking forward to never touching cat waste again!

So, this is what has been going on in the kitty toilet world. We gave up and opted for an expensive compromise. I hope that's the end of this story!

Here's a video of Alice checking out her new self-flushing litterbox! It was in the middle of a cleaning cycle. She watches it like it's TV.