Toilet Training Cats | Do You Want Your Kitten Sitting Pretty?

Barbara Ogburn was waiting for customers to come to dinner when her Siamese cat Toby was going to use her litter box.

"The guest bathroom smelled horrible and there was trash everywhere," said Ogburn. "I looked up and said, 'Dude, her litter box is gone."

Someone had taken a garbage Kwitter Ogburn, material three-step training that teaches cats to use a toilet instead of a sandbox. She decided to try it, and it worked. Now Ogburn, who 's had cats since childhood, says she never again have a litter box. There is no waste to buy more, to carry home or cleaning.

Litter Kwitter and other toilet training kits on the market for cats work like this: The toilet seat is equipped with a series of plastic rings that the cat can intervene in what doesn 't fall in. The hole in the rings are too large in time, until the cat can just balance on the toilet seat.

But training a cat to use the bathroom is not as easy as getting a cat to use a litter box. Cats instinctively bury their waste to hide from predators, and further away than the instinct of a toilet so it does not, according to Steve Duno Seattle, a pet behaviorist and the veteran coach who has written 18 books.

That 's why, when changing the bathroom, some cats are scraping the bowl, the tank or the wall next to the toilet. Outdoor cats are not good candidates for toileting.

In addition, some cats tolerate changes in their routines, while for others, even a slight change in feeding schedules will make their world crumble, said Dr. Meghan Herrera, Chief Veterinary Clinic Behavioral Medicine , part of the Department of Veterinary Clinical Services at Ohio State University.

"Cats are slaves to routine and very wary of danger to themselves," said Duno.

And there is nothing about the size or height of a toilet that is normal for a cat, said Herrera. "A bad experience with a bathroom can make you never use it again," she said.

Duno, who has several cats toilet trained says' s' cats known to have fallen into the toilet and that 's, you're done there. "

You also need patience. "Cats learn at a measured pace," said Duno. If you go too fast, your cat can find other places - furniture, floors, carpets, cabinets - to go, "said Herrera.

When you talk about cats toilet trained, most people think of Mr. Jinx, Robert De Niro 's ones, toilet-flushing cat chaos-making in Meet the Parents, Parents he and his parents recently.

Litter Kwitter The idea came from her parents, said Jo Lapidge, who with her husband Terry invented the game.

After research and testing, the couple from Sydney, Australia, started his company in 2005. Since then, "I have sold 750,000 kits.

Lapidge says the kit has a 80 percent rate of success "would be higher if humans stopped to follow all the instructions and showed a little more patience."

Besides potty training products, with plastic - ranging in price of lightweight plastic for about $ 10 to $ 50 Litter Kwitter - there are also online as a sites and books that explain how to train toilet your cat.

The online customer reviews of products are mixed. Even those who say "I have succeeded often said that it took several months to complete the training, with the cat in the road accidents. A commenter in a toiletry kit, the formation of a product called CitiKitty gave him five stars, but warned that the process was "chaotic."

There is a disadvantage for owners of cats who get to train their animals. Homeowners can be alerted to health problems at the frequency of a cat uses its litter box or the odor, color or texture of the waste. With a bathroom, "can 't monitor the cat' s health through elimination trials," said Duno.

Moreover, with the age of the cat toilet trained, can be difficult to jump on the seat.