The Cat's Ass Journals
the second installment of an irregular series
[In case you missed it: The Cat's Ass Journals, Part 1]
Thursday, 7th August 2003
Not much happened. Put the litterbox in the toilet all night Tuesday, all night Wednesday, no pooping occurred. Doing it again tonight. Matie suggests putting the litterbox in the bathtub in the morning (after our showers); maybe the cat's big hurdle is having to go up over something.
Friday, 8th August 2003
Holy crap! Woke up this morning and found pee in the catbox, in the toilet. I cleaned it out immediately and left the catbox in the toilet, rather than put it on the floor. Later, found poop! And pee!
So she's jumping (or climbing, I haven't actually seen her use it) up to the toilet and then pooping in the litterbox suspended there. This is pretty great; next step is just making a hole and making it larger.
I guess I'll try that tomorrow afternoon. I think the patterns on the bottom of the roaster pans will help make a hole with a lip, so the litter won't spill out. Pop suggested putting the seat down, so she has something to balance herself on, but I don't know if that'll work with the pan.
Sunday, 10th August 2003
Saturday: Matie brought up a point about the toilet seat: we really don't want cat poop on the seat on which we sit. I guess I won't work on putting the seat down. Before she told me, though, I formed the new roaster pan. The last one had a big of extra pan material that ended up at the back, next to the lid hinge, making it impossible to put the seat down while the pan was in. This new one was centered a little better and had the extra material at the front, coming out straight.
I cut out a small area in the back, sort of diagonal, on the corner. It was about the length and height of a banana laid in a deformed roaster pan, at the edge of the corner. (I need a camera.) Matie yelled at me for not just making a cut and rolling up a lip, but I had trouble directing the cut after I'd started it. I put in less litter, a bit under an inch.
Not too much of note; there was a little bit of litter in the toilet, but still about the same amount of pee in the pan. That's all right. This is just a start. She has no idea to aim for the hole yet.
Sunday morning, I woke to Matie half-asleep on the couch in the living room. Her tale of woe was long and didn't seem all that bad, actually: she'd woken up and had to pee. Entering the bathroom, she found that the cat had had a particularly stinky B.M. (One of the reasons this is a good cat to try to train to use the toilet is that she has never felt too strongly the need to cover up her offerings. Half the time she covers, half the time she makes a few token scratches and leaves.)
Although she (Matie) apparently scooped the cat poop into the toilet (unprecedented), the stench was still so great that she could not pee there. However, she could turn on the fan, set up three candles in the bathroom and light them, then go back in and add more candles. To hear her tell it, she waited for the first candles to burn down, but we have the ultra-cheap Jewish religious candles (you get 72 in a box for less than a nickel each) and they take about three hours to burn down. Probably she just dripped wax in the holders and set up the six or so candles.
And then, with all the candles going, she peed, but her nighttime of sleep was ruined. I was not very sympathetic, because Matie is notoriously bad at sleeping and is known to overreact to scents (and to hate the cat so much). She assured me that I would one day know her pain, but I am pretty good at peeing. I can't really imagine a version of our bathroom so horrible I couldn't pee in it somehow, and even then we have bushes outside.
Anyway, after everyone showered and everything, I cut the back of the pan a little more and bent a lip over, so there is a three-inch tall stripe across the back of the pan. Matie advised me to have the pan "wane like the moon," which is a fruity way to put it but a pretty good idea.
As of now, 2300 or so, the cat has left a little bit of clumped urine around the lip/edge of the hole. My theory is that most of the pee went into the toilet. At the risk of a reprise of Tuesday's hubris, everything is going according to plan.
I do need to point out that, other than this drama, Matie has really been very good about the whole enterprise. She started off as hardly patient, and now is almost enthusiastic. We went to the pet store today and she helped me pick out new cat food - there are several types now that advertise the ability to reduce poop odor, and even one that promises "reduced amount of feces." The cat has a thing she does where she totally ignores the gravity feeder and crawls into the bag to eat, so we decided to just skip the feeder-filling step and cut the new bag open. She (cat) seems okay with that. After the old bag was out, we had to throw out the food in the feeder - it had all gone soft and strangely formless.
My new theory is that it got wet at some point, but it's pretty charming to have a cat eating directly from a bag she's standing in. I'll put the feeder away for now.
If all goes well, on Thursday when I am off I will be able to put the seat down and remove the pan, then have the cat balance on the seat and pee. I have to do this Thursday because I will be off, not at school, and Matie won't be around. I think that the cat has trouble with balancing on a tiny area, and having her poop from the same seat we use won't be too bad - she is a desert cat, and leaves tidy and hard turds.
Wednesday, 13th August 2003
Tragedy! Much time has passed since last I wrote. I have slowly, slowly, enlarged the hole in the roasting pan, but retained the same general level of litter. This may have been a mistake.
I began to notice that although the litter-containing area had shrunken and shrunken, the urine was always left within it, not sprayed into the bowl. Then, with only a palm-sized area not cut away at the front of the bowl, I awoke today to find the cat had peed on the floor in front of the toilet. Not in frustration, but in a dribble that had come from above - she was clearly standing on the only litter available and letting the pee fall where it may.
I figured this all out in retrospect, mind.
I cleaned it up, wishing I could figure out how to get the stopper out of the sink and that we had a better mop. I guess on my day off I'll break the first if I have to, and buy a mop. I went to school and then work, then came home around midnight.
The cat was very, very loud and insistent. I was worried at first that she was hungry - I hadn't seen her eat any of the new food yet, and hadn't seen any poop. (It later turned out that Matie had been actually dealing with the poop regularly.) My fears about her not eating were put to rest when she went to the bathroom and (judging by the noise; I was in the kitchen putting groceries away) tried to stand on the pan to pee but fell, then centered herself on the bathroom rug and pooped.
Poor cat! I arrived during the pooping, but had my hands full of things I couldn't drop. If I had been thinking more quickly, I could have picked her up and placed her over the toilet while she finished pooping. That might have been traumatic, though.
I cleaned up the rug. As I said, she has very dry feces, so that wasn't so bad. Then I mopped with bleach and threw out the pan. Before I go to bed tonight, I need to make a new one. Around one A.M. I tried gently setting her on the seat of the toilet, then petted her while she got used to it, but I don't think it took.
As it stands, here are my thoughts:
She still had trouble standing on the regular seat, and Matie really doesn't want her to anyway. I have an idea: if she ends up learning to poop through a largish hole (about the size of a 45) in a pan with no litter, I could just cut a hole through the normal toilet lid. That would solve the footing problem - I could also put grip tape on the lid - and it would keep the seat proper pristine for human butts.
Yeah, that's a pretty good idea, plus I could get one of those circle drill bits from Wheeler Dealer for about five dollars. New goal: get cat to crap through hole in pan with no litter in it. Also explain situation to Matie, buy mop.
Excelsior!
And don't miss:
Thursday, 7th August 2003
Not much happened. Put the litterbox in the toilet all night Tuesday, all night Wednesday, no pooping occurred. Doing it again tonight. Matie suggests putting the litterbox in the bathtub in the morning (after our showers); maybe the cat's big hurdle is having to go up over something.
Friday, 8th August 2003
Holy crap! Woke up this morning and found pee in the catbox, in the toilet. I cleaned it out immediately and left the catbox in the toilet, rather than put it on the floor. Later, found poop! And pee!
So she's jumping (or climbing, I haven't actually seen her use it) up to the toilet and then pooping in the litterbox suspended there. This is pretty great; next step is just making a hole and making it larger.
I guess I'll try that tomorrow afternoon. I think the patterns on the bottom of the roaster pans will help make a hole with a lip, so the litter won't spill out. Pop suggested putting the seat down, so she has something to balance herself on, but I don't know if that'll work with the pan.
Sunday, 10th August 2003
Saturday: Matie brought up a point about the toilet seat: we really don't want cat poop on the seat on which we sit. I guess I won't work on putting the seat down. Before she told me, though, I formed the new roaster pan. The last one had a big of extra pan material that ended up at the back, next to the lid hinge, making it impossible to put the seat down while the pan was in. This new one was centered a little better and had the extra material at the front, coming out straight.
I cut out a small area in the back, sort of diagonal, on the corner. It was about the length and height of a banana laid in a deformed roaster pan, at the edge of the corner. (I need a camera.) Matie yelled at me for not just making a cut and rolling up a lip, but I had trouble directing the cut after I'd started it. I put in less litter, a bit under an inch.
Not too much of note; there was a little bit of litter in the toilet, but still about the same amount of pee in the pan. That's all right. This is just a start. She has no idea to aim for the hole yet.
Sunday morning, I woke to Matie half-asleep on the couch in the living room. Her tale of woe was long and didn't seem all that bad, actually: she'd woken up and had to pee. Entering the bathroom, she found that the cat had had a particularly stinky B.M. (One of the reasons this is a good cat to try to train to use the toilet is that she has never felt too strongly the need to cover up her offerings. Half the time she covers, half the time she makes a few token scratches and leaves.)
Although she (Matie) apparently scooped the cat poop into the toilet (unprecedented), the stench was still so great that she could not pee there. However, she could turn on the fan, set up three candles in the bathroom and light them, then go back in and add more candles. To hear her tell it, she waited for the first candles to burn down, but we have the ultra-cheap Jewish religious candles (you get 72 in a box for less than a nickel each) and they take about three hours to burn down. Probably she just dripped wax in the holders and set up the six or so candles.
And then, with all the candles going, she peed, but her nighttime of sleep was ruined. I was not very sympathetic, because Matie is notoriously bad at sleeping and is known to overreact to scents (and to hate the cat so much). She assured me that I would one day know her pain, but I am pretty good at peeing. I can't really imagine a version of our bathroom so horrible I couldn't pee in it somehow, and even then we have bushes outside.
Anyway, after everyone showered and everything, I cut the back of the pan a little more and bent a lip over, so there is a three-inch tall stripe across the back of the pan. Matie advised me to have the pan "wane like the moon," which is a fruity way to put it but a pretty good idea.
As of now, 2300 or so, the cat has left a little bit of clumped urine around the lip/edge of the hole. My theory is that most of the pee went into the toilet. At the risk of a reprise of Tuesday's hubris, everything is going according to plan.
I do need to point out that, other than this drama, Matie has really been very good about the whole enterprise. She started off as hardly patient, and now is almost enthusiastic. We went to the pet store today and she helped me pick out new cat food - there are several types now that advertise the ability to reduce poop odor, and even one that promises "reduced amount of feces." The cat has a thing she does where she totally ignores the gravity feeder and crawls into the bag to eat, so we decided to just skip the feeder-filling step and cut the new bag open. She (cat) seems okay with that. After the old bag was out, we had to throw out the food in the feeder - it had all gone soft and strangely formless.
My new theory is that it got wet at some point, but it's pretty charming to have a cat eating directly from a bag she's standing in. I'll put the feeder away for now.
If all goes well, on Thursday when I am off I will be able to put the seat down and remove the pan, then have the cat balance on the seat and pee. I have to do this Thursday because I will be off, not at school, and Matie won't be around. I think that the cat has trouble with balancing on a tiny area, and having her poop from the same seat we use won't be too bad - she is a desert cat, and leaves tidy and hard turds.
Wednesday, 13th August 2003
Tragedy! Much time has passed since last I wrote. I have slowly, slowly, enlarged the hole in the roasting pan, but retained the same general level of litter. This may have been a mistake.
I began to notice that although the litter-containing area had shrunken and shrunken, the urine was always left within it, not sprayed into the bowl. Then, with only a palm-sized area not cut away at the front of the bowl, I awoke today to find the cat had peed on the floor in front of the toilet. Not in frustration, but in a dribble that had come from above - she was clearly standing on the only litter available and letting the pee fall where it may.
I figured this all out in retrospect, mind.
I cleaned it up, wishing I could figure out how to get the stopper out of the sink and that we had a better mop. I guess on my day off I'll break the first if I have to, and buy a mop. I went to school and then work, then came home around midnight.
The cat was very, very loud and insistent. I was worried at first that she was hungry - I hadn't seen her eat any of the new food yet, and hadn't seen any poop. (It later turned out that Matie had been actually dealing with the poop regularly.) My fears about her not eating were put to rest when she went to the bathroom and (judging by the noise; I was in the kitchen putting groceries away) tried to stand on the pan to pee but fell, then centered herself on the bathroom rug and pooped.
Poor cat! I arrived during the pooping, but had my hands full of things I couldn't drop. If I had been thinking more quickly, I could have picked her up and placed her over the toilet while she finished pooping. That might have been traumatic, though.
I cleaned up the rug. As I said, she has very dry feces, so that wasn't so bad. Then I mopped with bleach and threw out the pan. Before I go to bed tonight, I need to make a new one. Around one A.M. I tried gently setting her on the seat of the toilet, then petted her while she got used to it, but I don't think it took.
As it stands, here are my thoughts:
- The websites advised me to make the hole in the center and gradually enlarge it.
- Moving the hole from back to front taught the cat the wrong thing - to hang her butt off the side.
- Matie is not as big a problem as I thought - she has taken this endeavor astoundingly well. I can allow the cat a lot more time to get used to things.
- The cat never got used to not having litter - she always had at least half an inch to stand on. Not having litter is an important part of peeing in the toilet.
- I need to buy more roasting pans.
She still had trouble standing on the regular seat, and Matie really doesn't want her to anyway. I have an idea: if she ends up learning to poop through a largish hole (about the size of a 45) in a pan with no litter, I could just cut a hole through the normal toilet lid. That would solve the footing problem - I could also put grip tape on the lid - and it would keep the seat proper pristine for human butts.
Yeah, that's a pretty good idea, plus I could get one of those circle drill bits from Wheeler Dealer for about five dollars. New goal: get cat to crap through hole in pan with no litter in it. Also explain situation to Matie, buy mop.
Excelsior!
And don't miss: