5 ms·
I left my cat alone in the house for a few days with my housekeeper popping in to feed and entertain him. He had a little over 2 day spell on his own at the en
by koalaman 5y ago
I left my cat alone in the house for a few days with my housekeeper popping in to feed and entertain him. He had a little over 2 day spell on his own at the end when my housekeeper couldn't come in. When I arrived home I discovered that our housekeeper had accidentally closed off the door accessing his litter box. I searched the house looking for the mess but couldn't find anything.. until I went to the bathroom and found that he had taken upon himself to use the toilet. He's definitely gone up in my esteem since.
All to say that some cats don't need any kind of training to use the toilet.
- jaxn 5y agoDid they continue using the toilet after that?
- koalaman 5y agoNope. As long as the litter is around he uses it and I've been reluctant to remove it in case using the toilet stresses him out.
- JohnBooty 5y agoThis is true. My cat definitely pees in the sinks and bathtubs sometimes even when his litter is fresh. He poops in the litter with no issues, so I don't think it's a location problem. My best educated guess is that he simply finds the sinks more convenient than hiking down to the basement. I have no doubts that he would pee in the toilet as well, but I can't leave the toilets open because we have dogs around. (Although, now that I'm typing this, I suppose we could install cat-doors on the bathroom doors to let the cat in, and keep the dogs out...) The sink/bathtub peeing is definitely gross and not ideal. But, not as gross as it sounds. He very very precisely pees directly down the drain. The smell is almost unnoticeable. So unnoticeable that it took us a lot of time to figure out he was even doing it, since he sometimes pees in the box as well. The main danger to him peeing in the sinks is that it will make it difficult for us to know if he has a blockage as we can not monitor his urine output. (I am not "noseblind" to cat pee smell, as far as I can tell. The litterbox is in the basement and if I neglect to clean it on a given day and there is pee in there, I can smell it from upstairs. I've also asked trusted people like my brother to verify there's no cat pee smell in the house! He's not afraid to give me harsh opinions...)
- Nextgrid 5y ago> but I can't leave the toilets open because we have dogs around. As someone who's never been a dog owner, what's the problem with dogs and toilets?
- sethammons 5y agoDogs like to drink from toilet bowls. I've owned lots of dogs and it has never been an issue aside from one dog as a kid and we just accepted it
- Nextgrid 5y agoIf this is really a big problem I wonder if a brand could come up with a mix of Bitrex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium) and one of those deodorizers/fresheners you put hanging on the edge of the toilet bowl.
- JohnBooty 5y agoYeah. It's not exactly the end of the world if a dog drinks from the toilet bowl, but we're the type of dog owners who have a lot of physical contact with the dogs, so we'd definitely prefer them not to be dripping with toilet water. Especially if the cat doesn't learn to flush like Charles Mingus' cat.
- base698 5y agoMy cats also drink out of the toilets.
- marcellus23 5y agoI’ve never had a cat that didn’t drink out of the toilet.
- fullstop 5y agoMy cats will use the sinks or tubs if they have a UTI.