teaching the cats to use the toilet in the rv

[suse1023]

i know my siamese are inclined to learn well so i picked up the 'litter quitter' kit at petco for them.
dammit the seat shape and size is too different from a household terlit, so now i guess i have to fabricate one for myself.

has anyone here found an rv toilet kit for teaching them or found another way to teach it?
i'm tempted to just add a bit of litter to the bottom of the toilet but asssume that will be lousy for my black tank.
or is there a paper litter which might work in this instance?
(and boy in this instance i sure wish my cameo had a second toilet which i could dedicate to them).

my dear departed siamese taught herself to use the toilet in the old house and it was great to throw away the litter box.
sure hope i can teach these three young'uns the same skill!

[rockhillmanor]

Dave E wrote:
And what if the cat can open doors like our's can, he can't stand for a door to be shut, he will open them just because they are shut. 😛 One good thing he hasn't learned to turn knobs yet almost but not yet thank goodness.

Wait, wait for it. He will.

Until we figured out our car 'could' turn door knobs to open doors there were quite a few domestics in progress in our household. One person would be responsible for locking the cat in the laundry room when we had guests and when the dang cat would saunter into the dining room during a dinner party, we'd be accuse each other of not closing the door properly. Only to find out the cat learned how to turn the knob and free himself.

[down_home]

Animals are smarter than we think and see no need to show us it seems.
Our raccoon like to get in the toilet and flush. Tried leaving him in the bathroom for a trip to the store. He tried to pry the wallpaper apart, at the seams. Seams we couldn't see. Dog plays when he wants too. When we brought Daughter's cats home to keep for a while he found his chew toy in the yard and dropped it in front of them to try to get them to play. We would tell him to get his toy and he would just looked bemused.
Cat can't reach the door knob. He's so fat he amazes me he can move but he tries to pry the door open until we notice and open it. He waits til we go to bed and cut the light s off to rattle the blinds to get us to go feed him, every night. se tor find a magazine etc to rattle the paper aat the last house for the same reason.
I would love to find a half Bobcat like one client had that would fetch and open the cabinet and get his canned food and bring it to be opened and a bunch of other neat tricks.

[CA_POPPY]

We had a cat years ago that could jiggle the door knobs and scare you to death with his best Alfred Hitchcock technique. He also would stick claws into the screen door and bang it alarmingly. :E Romeo sure did let us know when he wanted in. :B

[Dashonthedash]

Dave E, a friend of mine has a German Shepherd who can not only open doors, but turn the knobs as well. We call him The Doorman. The only way she can keep him out of a room is to lock the door. He hasn't learned yet to pick the lock, at least as far as I know :B

[Dave_E]

And what if the cat can open doors like our's can, he can't stand for a door to be shut, he will open them just because they are shut. 😛 One good thing he hasn't learned to turn knobs yet almost but not yet thank goodness.

[Wanderlost]

Unfortunately, we don't have a door between the master bedroom and the master bath, so locking Spot out doesn't work.

[dturm]

Wanderlost wrote:
While I believe Spot is more than capable of learning to use the toilet, I'm not about to teach him how to flush it. He's so fascinated with sinks and toilets that if he could turn on the faucet, we'd have water bills beyond outrageous.

Several years ago, I had a client who had a cat that repeatedly flushed the toilet. They had a huge water bill, kept looking for leaks, faulty meter, etc. They found out when one owner was home sick from work and observed the cat having a good old time flushing then watching the water circling until gone. Repeat, repeat, repeat...

They closed the bathroom door when leaving the house.

[Wanderlost]

While I believe Spot is more than capable of learning to use the toilet, I'm not about to teach him how to flush it. He's so fascinated with sinks and toilets that if he could turn on the faucet, we'd have water bills beyond outrageous.

[Code2High]

I have successfully taught one cat to use a toilet. I used a kit where the seat has a tray built into it, but then I put it on a box with a bowl sunk into it and went forward from there. Eventually I got her to use the seat with all the flaps retracted and then switched her onto a regular toilet seat. I think you could do the same with an rv toilet seat. Train the cat with the regular set up, establish the behavior, then switch to something closer to what will be in the rv.

Training multiple cats at once is hard and in my case impossible. Each one seemed to approach things differently. I trained Tab only at night in the bathroom where she was alone. During the day she was loose with the other cats.

I would NOT recommend ever teaching a cat to flush. They tend to find that far too fascinating....

[mrkoje]

Good god please don't put litter in the rv toilet. Sure the litter isn't good for the black tank - but all I can think about is somehow the kitty going down the drain into the tank as well!

[CA_POPPY]

I'm picturing dancing around the aisle, "holding it" whilst waiting for Kitty to be done. :W

[magnusfide]

This thread reminds me of an old friend from 40 years back. She kept wondering why in the world her city water bill was sky-high. Then one day she found out. She heard the toilet flushing multiple times and discovered her cat had learned to flush the toilet so it could watch the water go down. Kitty was shut out of the bathroom after that.

Clever creatures, cats. It's a good thing they don't have opposable thumbs or we'd all be in trouble.

[RoyB]

The next thing you will have to do is to provide a daily paper for them to read too.

Getting them to flush is probably abit harder to do...

Roy Ken

[rockhillmanor]

http://www.citikitty.com/default.asp



Testimonial: "We live in our motor home and travel the US in the winter months. We wanted a cat, but didn't want a litter box, especially in a RV. KC was about 3 months old when we started with CitiKitty. Not only is she now toilet trained, she even uses it while we are driving!!Ardy - British Columbia, Canada