Neal's Workshop

First, Watch the Epic Tail of My Cat and Toilet:

(Note: make sure you have sound turned "on" for the best experience)

The Story:

During my senior year at the University of Georgia, I decided to get a cat. I found Zeke when he was a kitten at the Atlanta Persian and Siamese Rescue. Having seen Meet the Parents and not wanting to deal with litter, I did a little googling on cat toilet training. As is now the case, the top website returned was Karawynn.net's How to Toilet Train Your Cat. Though I departed slightly from Kara's tips, her methodology was sound. So I embarked on an attempt to train Zeke to use the toilet. Litter be damned!

Here's the gist what I did. I got a plastic bowl that nested inside the toilet, below the seat. It had a healthy lip to it so as to rest on the inner rim of the toilet. As such, it didn't touch the water or anything particuarly disgusting (I say "particularly" only because this process was disgusting, at base). Then, I put litter in the bowl. As a result, Zeke was conditioned to get up on the toilet to use the litter box.

The hardest part was getting his feet to be on the seat and not in the bowl/litter. In order to do this, I had to catch Zeke right before he commenced the act. Then, you had to move his feet up onto the seat manually. Being lazy, I did not want to run to the bathroom every time Zeke went in, so I put a webcam in the bathroom and turned on the motion sensor. The rest is history. Well, at least as it concerns the video above.

As for the kitty gritty, Zeke was a slow learner, which is surprising because he's pretty smart (He was still a kitten though). I eventually got Zeke to the point of going No. 1 in the toilet without assistance or any litter in the bowl. It's hard to explain the never-lessening hilarity of studying in my room and suddenly hearing this tinkling sound coming from the bathroom. Absolutely hilarious. And on a couple of occasions, he would paw at the air and hit the toilet paper roll only to spill endless TP on the floor. Tell me that's not funny.

Unfortunately, Zeke just would not get used to going No. 2 in the toilet. The video above is one of the rare times he did it. My only theory is that the splashback spooked him. Hell, splashback still spooks the hell out of me.

So I tried and tried and tried to get him to poop in the toilet, continuously sticking to the training. I probably should have regressed considerably in the training regiment but I was too stubborn: I kept thinking, this time he'll get it. Nope. He just kept pooping in the tub, instead (Super gross). I can just imagine Zeke thinking, "That'll teach the bastard to try and make me poop in the toilet!" Ah well, at least I get the enjoyment of the hilarious (And yes, disgusting!) video.

I hope you enjoy. And no, I did not attempt to teach him to flush.

Update: 2007-07-05

To commemorate the fact that something like 150,000 people have viewed Zeke poop on either YouTube or Google video, which is to say nothing of those who saw it on VH1's Best Week Ever, I did up a little t-shirt. It's specifically for folks just like you:

I watch cats poop on the internet compliments of AnarchyWARE.