Expert: Dear Tabbi - 5/19/2008

Question
QUESTION: I've been trying to teach my cat (he's about 3 months old and is nuetered) to use a human toilet for a few weeks, I'm using the Citikiti training seat and he knows how to use it and he uses it most of the time. However, he has an accident on the carpet about once a week it seems, he usually only poops on the carpet, he doesn't pee. I have him on an eating schedual- I feed him one small scoop of food around 3:30pm and 9 pm, because those are the times that I'm home to make sure he goes to the bathroom. Also, he seems to only go to the bathroom when I go upstairs in the room with him. I don't know what to do to get him to go to the bathroom by himself- My parents always get mad at him when he goes to the bathroom on the new carpet- by the way- we took out all the little carpets in our house, but there's one carpet that's amaller than the others in our hallway that he seems to enjoy pooping on, I've tried spraying airfresheners on the carpet to elliminate the smells, I don't know what else to do, cause the carpets in a main part of our house. :-( what should I do to get him to stop pooping on the carpet?

ANSWER: April,

Teaching a cat to use a toilet is cute but it is not natural! I would not do that to my cats!

He is also just a baby that is growing. A small scoop of food twice a day is NOT enough food. And his feeding times and the amount of food fed should NOT be used to try to control his bathroom habits! He should be fed free-choice: a bowl of high quality food available all the time. And he should be allowed to go to the bathroom when his body tells him it's time. All cats have different metabolism.

To get him to stop pooping on the carpet? Put a litterbox downstairs for him! And maybe one in the bathroom upstairs. Let him be a normal cat! What happens if you can't be there at his "bathroom times"? You may cause him medical and emotional problems. Plus getting angry at him for having accidents is not fair because you are trying to force abnormal behavior on him and he is getting punished for doing what is normal to a cat.

HOMEMADE CAT URINE REMOVER

1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1 teaspoon of liquid soap

Gently mix all ingredients in a non-metal container. Do not mix or shake vigorously! The mixture is best used when fresh but can be stored. DO NOT keep mixture in an airtight container as baking soda and hydrogen peroxide when mixed together release a lot of oxygen and can cause an explosion.

The recipe is effective because the reaction from mixing hydrogen peroxide and baking soda produces large amount of oxygen. The oxygen molecules bond to the thiols, breaking them up into carbon dioxide and ammonia which evaporates quickly thereby effectively neutralizing the thoils and their foul-smelling odor.
Always check for color fastness as hydrogen peroxide can be a bleaching agent. If you don't know where an odor is coming from you might need to use a small battery operated blacklight called a 'Stink Finder' (PetSmart, Petco, etc.) at night to find the soiled areas.

HOW TO REMOVE CAT URINE ODOR FROM CARPETS

FOR INDIVIDUAL URINE SPOTS ON CARPET:
If fresh, sop up as much cat urine as you can with a paper towel first. Use a spray bottle to saturate the spot completely with the recipe - do not blot. The recipe must penerate the padding and possibly the floor boards underneath, where the urine has penerated for it to work. Wait 24-48 hours until dry then vacuum. If the urine odor is still present - repeat the procedure. It usually takes 2-3 applications to completely neutralize the cat urine odor.



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: He's not a little cat anymore, he might still be young, but he's growing really fast- like, he's getting fat(but not like, grossly fat)- If I feed him all the time he doesn't know when to stop eating, so he'll just continue to get fatter-and that's not healthy either. Also, I've talked to many other experts about toilet training him and they said that toilet training him is a good idea-it's a lot more convenient for us and the cat- cause it illuminates the odor and cats like that. I would like to put a litter box downstairs, but I can't cause my parents won't let me, they think since he's my cat-all his stuff should be in my room. And that makes no sense- how keeping him on a eating schedule could possibly effect him in any negative ways? Also, you must have misunderstood me, or maybe I didn't speak clear enough- I don't starve my cat- he eats what he wants and leaves the rest, so he usually always haves at least half a bowl of food in his bowl. Do you have any other suggestions on how I can toilet train him more effectively?

Answer
April,

Here is some information about toilet training that may be helpful for you from www.karawynn.net:

Ready? First start by training yourself ...

The very most important thing to remember is: Lid Up, Seat Down. Post a note on the back of the door or the lid of the toilet if you think you (or your housemates or guests) might forget.  And if you are accustomed to closing the bathroom door when it's empty, you'll have to break that habit too.

Begin by moving the cat's current litter box from wherever it is to one side of the toilet. Make sure he knows where it is and uses it. Rest. Next put something — a stack of newspapers, a phone book, a cardboard box — under the litter box to raise it, say, about an inch. (Magazines are too slick; you don't want the litter box sliding around and making Felix feel insecure. Tape the litter box down if you need to.) Rest. Get another box or phone book and raise it a little higher. Rest. Continue this process until the bottom of the litter box is level with the top of the toilet seat. (For Misha I raised it about two inches per day.)

At the beginning of this process, your cat could just step into the box; later he began jumping up into it, until at some point he probably started jumping up onto the toilet seat first and stepping into the box from there. You've been diligently keeping the lid up and the seat down, of course, so by now your cat is thoroughly familiar with tromping around on the open toilet.

Lift the seat on your toilet and measure the inside diameter of the top of the bowl at its widest point. Venture forth and buy a metal mixing bowl of that diameter. Do not (I discovered this the hard way) substitute a plastic bowl. A plastic bowl will not support the cat's weight and will bend, dropping into the toilet bowl and spilling litter everywhere, not to mention startling hell out of the cat.

Now you move the litter box over so that it's sitting directly over the toilet seat. (If your cat has shown reluctance over previous changes, you might want to split this into two stages, moving it halfway onto the seat and then fully over.) Take away the stack of phone books or whatever. Rest.

Here's the cool part. Take away the litter box entirely. (Ta da!) Nestle the metal mixing bowl inside the toilet bowl and lower the seat. Fill the bowl with about two inches of litter (all of this is much easier if you have the tiny granules of litter that can be scooped out and flushed).

Naturally, any humans using the toilet at this point will want to remove the metal bowl prior to their own use and replace it afterward. The next week or two the whole process is likely to be something of an annoyance; if you begin to think it's not worth it, just remember that you will never have to clean a litter box again.

Watch your cat using the bathroom in the metal bowl. Count the number of feet he gets up on the toilet seat (as opposed to down in the bowl of litter). The higher the number, the luckier you are and the easier your job is going to be ...

...because next you have to teach him proper squatting posture. Catch him beginning to use the toilet as much of the time as possible and show him where his feet are supposed to go. Just lift them right out of the bowl and place them on the seat (front legs in the middle, hind legs on the outside). If he starts out with three or, heaven forbid, all four feet in the bowl, just get the front two feet out first. Praise him all over the place every time he completes the activity in this position.

You can also reward him with small food treats and wean him from them later when the toilet behavior has 'set.' Just keep the treats as small and infrequent as possible — half a Pounce or similar treat per occasion should be plenty.)

When he is regularly using the toilet with his front feet out (and some cats naturally start from this position), begin lifting a hind foot out and placing it on the seat outside the front paws. Felix will probably find this awkward at first and try to replace the foot in the litter. Be persistent. Move that foot four times in a row if you have to, until it stays there. Praise and/or treat.


Repeat with the other hind foot, until your cat learns to balance in that squat. (There will actually be two different squats, a low one for urine elimination and a high one for bowel movements.) Once he's getting all four feet regularly on the seat, it's all downhill from here.

Which is fortunate, because the last bit is also the most unpleasant. I suggest that you postpone this stage until you have at least a weekend, and preferably several days, when you (or another responsible party) will be at home most of the time. I skipped through this part in about two days; I only hope that your cat allows you to move along that fast.

Begin reducing the litter in the bowl. Go as fast as he'll feel comfortable with, because as the litter decreases, the odor increases. You'll want to be home at this point so that you can praise him and dump out the contents of the bowl immediately after he's finished, to minimize both the smell and the possibility that your cat, in a confused attempt to minimize the smell on his own, tries to cover it up with litter that no longer exists and ends up tracking unpleasantness into the rest of the house.

By the time you're down to a token teaspoonful of litter in the bottom of the bowl, your next-door neighbors will probably be aware of the precise instant your cat has used the toilet. This is as bad as it gets. The next time you rinse out the metal bowl, put a little bit of water in the bottom. Increase the water level each time, just as you decreased the litter level. Remember — if at any point Felix looks nervous enough about the change to give the whole thing up and take his business to the corner behind the door, back up a step or two and try the thing again more slowly.

Once the water in the mixing bowl is a couple of inches deep and your cat is comfortable with the whole thing, you get to perform the last bit of magic. Take the mixing bowl away, leaving the bare toilet. (Lid Up, Seat Down.)

Voila! Your cat is now toilet-trained.

Here is the link for frequently asked questions about toilet training:
http://www.karawynn.net/mishacat/faq.html

I hope this is more helpful to you.
Tabbi