everybody poops

And cats too! The thing is, with a cat, you've gotta do something about it. I'm getting tired of the litter box cycle. The constant scooping, and changing. The litter that gets out of the box, the smell (although, I seem to be immune to it my roommate seems to think it's unpleasant). Mia has always been a gem about the litter box - in the whole 8.5 years I've had her she's only not used the litter box twice. Once when she was 11 weeks old, and I moved it to a new location and forgot to show her where. She ended up peeing on the floor where the litter box used to be. (Sorry baby, you tried so hard!) The other time was when we were in DC, so she was about 1 and a half, and she was accidentally locked in my roommates room while we were all out for the night. Oops. Again, my fault.

I've had conversations with fellow cat owners whose kittehs are pretty demanding over everything litter-box related. Some people have to scoop daily (or twice daily). Some people have to clean the thing completely once a week. Some people can not just up and change the type of litter without a protest. Others have to fear the vengeance of their bad kittehs, who will purposefully not use the litter box in protest of some other travesty. Not Miss Mia, she goes in that box no matter how full it is, how long since it's been cleaned completely, whether I've been home for 5 days straight or gone for a week. I can use a different type of litter everyday and she wouldn't care. I could move the litter box to a new location every hour and she'd find it and go. I'm lucky. We're lucky!

I'm about to push our luck. I've been thinking for a while how great it would be if Mia could use the toilet. No more smelly box, no more dirty litter. No more scooping, no more changing. Mia gets a bad rep as a mean cat - sometimes it prevents people from wanting to come take care of her. She's not mean, she's a big ol' fraidy cat - who has learned to hiss and swat to protect herself. That, and she's a touch moody! But, how wonderful would it be to cat sit a cat who doesn't need a litter box?!

It arrived yesterday, our toilet training kit. I've read through the directions. Basically you are at each step until you can make it through one week accident-free. In preparation, today I moved the litter box back in to the bathroom. Tomorrow night, I will set up the contraption. It's basically a pan that sits under the seat, and gets filled with some litter (and catnip if needed!). Roommate is out of town from Saturday to Tuesday, so this gives us a few days to experiment, and determine the extent of the "accidents". If she can master the litter pan on the toilet, then we start removing small pieces from the center - creating larger and larger openings. This will teach her to use the toilet seat to stand on.

My predictions. If this doesn't work, it will be because she refuses to go to the bathroom at all. Also, I'm setting the over-under at 6 for the number of times we forget to remove the litter pan before peeing in the middle of the night. Place your bets.