I don't know if anyone else has noticed this - but as we now live in an era where it would appear that some are prepared to do almost anything in order to save money - the ways in which to do that seem to be getting more and more bizarre. Like this for instance - “ save money on cat litter by teaching your cat to use the toilet “. So - although I would never even dream of going to this extreme - as apart from the fact that I think it cruel to force animals to do something that is not natural to them - it would more importantly not be very good for the cats - for reasons mentioned here Log In Log In as ads on how to do this appear to be cropping up on an almost a daily basis - I thought it might be interesting to hear what other cat owners think of this idea. Which brings me to - what are your thoughts on this and would you consider trying to train your cat to do this - just to save money ?
No, I have a cat and he either pees in his litter basin or he wants to be let out when he needs to pee or poo. I think forcing cats to use the toilet is depriving the cat of his natural behavior and like what the article says, you can't see the irregularities in his waste or how he eliminates.
When we have a new puppy - we never get a new adult dog because that is hard to train - we teach the puppy the proper toilet habits by placing it on a newspaper. We would confine the puppy in that newspaper until it does its thing. We would do that all the time and the puppy would immediately urinate or poop when it sees a newspaper on the floor.
I think it would be quite hard to do. Cat litter doesn't cost that much and I don't see why people would object to buying it. It can be messy though I admit that. I have seen steps of how to teach your cat to use the toilet and it doesn't look like a simple process. Try stores like Family Dollar for inexpensive cat litter.
It's not that hard to train a cat to use the toilet, but not all cats will learn, especially older ones. On top of that, most people don't find that very hygienic, so you might get house guests that aren't thrilled with your cat's trick. Litter expenses do add up, but I'd rather pay that cost to keep my cat's poop separate from my own, if you know what I'm saying. Most people probably feel the same way because litter is a regular expense, and cheap litters are available anyways.
The idea of not having to empty smelly cat litter I would train the cat but I doubt it can be done. And I don't know if I would be comfortable using the same bathroom as the cat.
I once adopted a calico cat whose previous owner had potty trained her. I found this out the hard way. At the time, I lived alone and was terrified to hear someone urinating in the bathroom in the middle of the night. I was quite surprised to throw open the bathroom door and find the cat sitting on the toilet peeing. It didn't completely get rid of cat litter for me though because she still went number two in the litter box.
My childhood next door neighbor had a cat that started using the toilet instead of the litter box. I didn't believe her until I saw it with my own eyes. She didn't even train the cat. She just happened to have the litter box in the bathroom and, for what we figured, the cat saw the humans using the toilet and decided to give it a try! She never could teach that cat to flush when he was done though...
When I was in high school, I had a pet cat. My neighbor gave her to me. She is already a little bit older than a kitten then. I was surprised to find that she buries her pee and poop in the soilnor sand whenever she has to go! When she had kittens, they also had this manner of peeing and pooping. So I really did not need to teach them to use the toilet lol.
That first article in particular was hilarious, I was cracking up when I got to the part about flushing... " You could train your cat to flush, but you should know that a cat who knows how to flush is likely to do it all day." LOL!!! There was a product on Shark Tank recently for potty training cats, and I will admit, I thought it sounded like a good idea at first until reading these articles which make more sense. On the show they stressed that the water itself would cover up the odor from the cat's urine/poop, and that once they realized that they would be inclined to simply use the toilet instead of using the litter box any more. I had also heard that cat litter can be bad too, since the clay dust gets in the air when they're kicking it around, and they inhale that and get ill over time, so water was starting to sound like a good idea. My biggest deal breaker though with regards to potty training cats, is I would be horrified of my guests seeing un-flushed poop and urine in my toilets and trying to explain to them it's just the cats.
