On Day 1 of Furball’s cat toilet training, I took the CitiKitty kit and placed the plastic tray insert on the ground next to the toilet.  According to the instruction booklet (which is printed on 100% recycled paper), the first step is to place your litter box next to the toilet.

Furball’s box has always been next to the toilet so I was already onto Step 2.  The second step was to actually put the tray insert into the toilet and show it to your cat.  I decided to go slower since everything I’ve read about cat toilet training suggests that going slowly is the best thing to do.

As a result, I put the tray insert on the floor where Furball’s litter box used to be.  The plastic made a scratchy scraping sound on the floor, so I carefully folded up a piece of newspaper and put it underneath as a buffer.  I thought the scrape (like nails on a chalkboard) might freak out the cat.

I also didn’t put only fresh litter in the tray.  I put a bit of his stink-o-factor litter from the box.  It made sense to me that he’d recognize what it was if there was some of his business in it.  The tray felt like it might move around when he walked on it, so I also wedged it between the litter scoop and the toilet brush to keep it from sliding.

I was expecting a big mess of litter all over the bathroom since the tray is quite shallow.  Much to my surprise and delight, when Furball used the “box”, there was just a wet spot in the tray and a few stray bits of litter.  Later in the day, when he did #2, he left a few logs sitting on top.

I guess I’m lucky that my cat is rather lazy when it comes to burying his stuff.  I’m unlucky in that for 8 years, I’ve had to put up with stinky cat boxes since he won’t cover it up half the time.  On the other hand, this might make cat toilet training really easy.