Plastic potty helps pussy pee
Judy Skatssoon
ABC Science Online
Monday, 2 May 2005
Owners shouldn't put too much pressure on their cats when toilet-training as this can cause anxiety and constipation, animal behaviour experts say.
Cats can be trained to take themselves to the bathroom and use the toilet like humans, says the inventor of a pussy potty.Australian designer Jo Lapidge says her system structures cat toilet-training into three stages using behaviour modification and a system of colour-coded rings.
The system, which is being commercially marketed, uses red, amber and green toilet seat-shaped rings that can be filled with kitty litter and placed over the toilet bowl.Kitty graduates through the rings, which have holes of increasing size, until she is weaned off the litter and learns to balance on the toilet seat alone.
Why teach a cat to use a toilet?
Lapidge says the idea isn't as silly as it sounds.She says as well as eliminating the need for kitty litter in the house, it means the cat can stay indoors, which protects native wildlife.
Lapidge isn't the first to come up with the idea but her innovative design has won her a place in the Fresh Innovators initiative, a campaign to highlight the work of emerging Australian inventors.She says the final design came to her in a "flash of inspiration" after trying to toilet-train her own cat Doogal using pot-plant saucers and cheap plastic toilet seats cobbled together in her backyard.
Lapidge says her invention is sturdy, practical, easy to get on and off the toilet seat and helps owners break toilet-training into straightforward steps."It allows you and your cat to progress at its own pace," she says.
Cats, like children, achieve toilet-training in their own time
Plastic wrap does the trick tooDr Kersti Seksel, an Australian registered veterinary specialist in animal behaviour, says it isn't difficult to train a cat to use the toilet and you don't even need to fork out money for commercial products.
A roll of plastic wrapping and a bit of cardboard works just as well, she says.You cover the toilet with plastic wrapping, place a piece of cardboard with a hole cut in the middle over the top, and sprinkle kitty litter into the hole.Once the cat has finished toileting, it scratches the plastic wrapping as if it was digging to bury the waste. This rips the plastic wrapping, allowing the soiled kitty litter to drop into the toilet below.
"The first step is getting them up on the toilet once you get them on the toilet then you just change what the litter tray looks like then away you go," she says.
But don't expect the cat to flush the toilet, Seksel says."I'm sure there'll be somebody who'll says 'yes my cat does', but generally they don't," she says.
Seksel says based on her experience about 5% of cat owners would have toilet-trained moggies, particularly people who live in apartments."It's not common but it's not that strange," she says.
Theoretically, many animals, including dogs and rabbits, can be trained to use the toilet, but there are physical limitations.
"The average great dane isn't going to balance on a toilet seat," she says.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
when i first read this, the first thing i could think about was k-lo.
k-lo is the cutest, most handsome cat u could ever find, but he belongs to my friend. anyways, this machoistic cat that lives with my friend, also have the luxury of the squating toilets that exists in my friend's apartment. most newer apartments no longer have those squatting ones, but my friend's home isn't exactly all that new.
anyways, one day, while i was visting nurjit, k-lo was no where to be found.. so i was like, er.. oh wells (i have this thing for cats... when i find them i tend to follow around them meowing away...)
then i needed to use the toilet... so off i went happily and guess who i saw, with his face all scrunched up, one eye slightly opened staring at me....
k-lo.
he was taking a dump right there...tail lifted up, ass half way thru the toilet so that his dump goes right in. he doesnt seem very happy that i was staring though...
so anyways, that was the end of it. after he was done, k-lo strutted to this water holding thing, like those saucepan things, but plastic. it was slightly filled with water.. he gently pawed it or something, and lept aside as it woosh water down the toilet!!!!!
i was like "OMG NURJIT, LOOK AT K-LO!!! HE'S FLUSHING THE DAMN TOILET...!!!" or some pathetic attempt to flush anyways!!!
then he stared at me again. and i just stared back, the urge for pee was totally gone.
licking his paws, he suddenly started scrubbing the edges of the toilet bowl, the under rims where it might be dirty... working his way roughly till it was near the water pool.
i couldnt stop laughing, and this time nurjit joined me, commenting on how hard working k-lo is scrubbing up his mess, and how she was never this hardworking before!! lmao... her mum stood beside us, commenting that she neednt wash the toilet that week after all, with such a hardworker..
and all this time, k-lo kept looking at us, sternly, as if we were wrong to laugh at him -.-
in the mean time, i think there's only ONE face that can sum up this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment