Day 60 -- Kratos POOPS AND PEES!!

Today, Kratos has pooped, peed, and done everything imaginable to the toilet!

Yesterday I was worried that he did not take his daily dump. I came home today, expecting to clean up a big pile from the carpet, but found nothing. Relieved, I gave Kratos some food, and waited.

My patience was amply rewarded! Right after eating, he stepped onto the toilet, and peed.

It was excellent! But he still had not pooped yet. He went out for a little more food, and then came back into the bathroom. He jumped onto the seat, and gave pooping a good try:

Okay, it didn't work. Yet. He wandered around the bathroom, snuggled with my legs, and finally went back onto the toilet. This time, SUCCESS!!

WOW!

I'll be carefully monitoring him for the next few days to make sure that he can poop and pee (and drink) without fear. It was a little worrisome today when he pooped -- he kept shifting his weight on the seat and looked a little uncomfortable. And it still takes too many tries before he could poop or pee. Hopefully, though, he will grow comfortable with the action, as well as his newly elevated place in the world among enlightened beings.

This has been a long and frustrating 60 days -- but the look on Kratos' face as he crouches over the toilet seat, squeezing out every last bit, makes it all worthwhile! Next milestone: Kratos uses the toilet without me in the bathroom!

Day 59 -- KRATOS USES THE TOILET!!111

No useless rambling from me; here's the video:

AMAZING!

A day after my last post, Kratos pooped on the carpet again. This time, he cleverly dragged over one of my sandals and placed it neatly on top of the pile, once again earning points for creativity and flourish, but not for correctness.

Thereafter, I started training him to always poop in my presence. Every night before I go to sleep, I lock Kratos and myself in the bathroom and commence a staring contest that does not end until he relents and poops (and gets his yummy treat). This ensures that he never poops on the carpet again, and I figured it would be easier to train him to poop into the toilet if I can get him to poop on demand when the day comes.

That day was today. I removed the popcorn bowl from the toilet, and Kratos became immediately attached to the rediscovery of his favorite water source. He kept drinking from it, despite my numerous attempts to stop him. Thankfully, he has no qualms about peeing where he drinks (that's a good thing!), and did the deed today!

I'm only cautiously optimistic, however. In the video he seemed to have done it with ease, but it was in fact after numerous failed attempts. And he was supposed to poop, not pee -- which means there's still a lump of poop in him waiting to be dispensed, likely mid-day tomorrow, and perhaps not in the toilet. Sigh. There's still a ways to go, but this is definite progress.

Go Kratos!! You are amaz0rs!!!

Day 54 -- Long journey to no litter

In my last post, I said that I would let Kratos get used to pooping with all paws on the seat first for a few days. Of course, I did no such thing. Instead, my impatience again got the better of me, and I immediately started adding more water to the litter bow. And again, I was rewarded amply for my impatience -- take a look at Kratos peeing into a bowl with half litter and half water, on Day 46:

Note how gingerly Kratos moved on the seats; he was still getting used to standing on the tiny seat surface.

In fact, I was so proud of Kratos, that I added even more water to the bowl, with even less litter. Unfortunately, that went much less successfully; Kratos refused to poop. And when he finally did, it was during the day, when I was at work, and on the carpet. Even more amazingly, the pile of poop was neatly buried under his toy:

(pictured here without poop)

I have no idea how a cat that cannot even bury his poop with litter found a way to stack poop directly under this thing, but no matter how impressed I was by this, it was still a failure. I slowed, down, added some more litter back, and waited.

It was a fine line to push against; I increased the water-litter ratio slowly throughout the week, sometimes locking him inside the bathroom (and myself with him) after meal time and waiting for him to poop. At some point, he figured out that if I lifted him onto the toilet and he pooped, he would get a fancy treat, and so he deliberately stopped jumping onto the seat and started waiting for me to lift him up instead. That was unacceptable, so I had to stop air-lifting him but still forcefully make sure he poops only on the toilet and nowhere else. Somewhere in there, another pooping accident snuck in too (less artistically buried this time). It was a long week of slow progress -- just like all the other weeks.

But eventually, it paid off! Kratos first gained the confidence to pee into a bowl of clear water, and last night, Kratos for the first time pooped into a bowl of clear water as well, without my help!

The bowl of cold, fresh water proves very tempting for Kratos, and he does have the bad habit of drinking out of it before he poops or pees into it. But at least he seems to be surviving without any litter in sight! I'm going to hold his progress to this for a few days (for reals this time!), and start experimenting with removing the bowl altogether next week!

Maybe Kratos will be toilet-trained soon?!!?

Day 44 -- Finally, progress!!

These past weeks have been excruciating.

Training Kratos to poop with all four paws on the toilet seat has been extremely difficult and frustrating. Everyday, I rush home, hoping that he hadn't used the toilet yet. Then, I set up shop in front of the bathroom door, and basically wait and wait and wait for Kratos to muster up enough pooping desire to enter the bathroom. Every time Kratos comes close, I jump out of my seat, and follow him into the bathroom, quietly so as not to scare him. When he inevitably hears me and turns around, I force myself to smile and nod my head in approval to encourage him further. If I am very lucky, I might be able to catch him use the toilet twice this way; on most days, though, I can only catch him once, and on some days, when Kratos just refuses to use the toilet, or sneaks into the bathroom when I'm not looking, I would waste a whole night of Kratos-stalking for naught.

Even Kratos must be getting creeped out by my unnatural scatological obsessions, as demonstrated by this picture strip taken by my roommate:

Every time I catch Kratos using the litter bowl, I try to move all four of his legs onto the toilet seat. And every time I succeed, I give him some treats. But all this work didn't seem to be having any effects; Kratos was still standing in the litter bowl every time, getting yummy treats without much improvement.

Frustrated, I decided to push him a little more. Last week, I added some water into the litter bowl, covering up some litter, so that it became some kind of nasty litter swamp. It kind of worked -- Kratos only tentatively touched the water (and yes, tasted it), but had no desire to stand in this soup. He then took a while moving around on top of the toilet trying to pee, and eventually did indeed pee with all four paws on the seat -- but in the wrong posture!!

That totally did not work.

I was feeling really hopeless; it's just too stressful to stalk a cat every minute of every evening. And I was getting ready to call it quits, if it weren't for this magical morning today, when Kratos suddenly decided to be interested in not standing in the litter! He attempted to do so:

Three legs on the toilet seat ain't bad!

Thankfully, his interest continued into the evening, when he took his daily dump after his dinner. I filmed Kratos as he tried, several times, again and again, to position himself with all four paws on the toilet seat, until...

SUCCESS!!

It's a little silly to feel so happy that Kratos is now finally able to poop with all four paws on the seat, when in fact he was able to do it on Day 11! Letting him get used to standing in the litter was the worst mistake I made -- one that took more than 30 days to correct. But that may have been simply beginner's luck; now Kratos does it with much more deliberation, and much less scratching of litter beforehand as well.

I'm going to let Kratos get used to this for another few days, but I feel great. Once he masters staying on the seat, it seems only a matter of time before he will be able to do so without any litter at all...

Wow. This might work after all...

Day 37 -- Stay on the toilet seat first!

In the past few days, I've decided that I need to first train Kratos to stay on the toilet seat while he poops before I start decreasing the amount of litter in the bowl. After all, it's definitely not a good idea to be peeing into a near-empty bowl... while standing in it. Plus, once Kratos is not standing on litter anymore when pooping, it will probably be easier to get him to poop with no litter at all.

Yes yes, obvious in retrospect. I am so impatient.

It's very difficult, however. First, I have to stalk Kratos at every moment, sneaking up behind him whenever he goes into the bathroom in case he tries to poop. Then, every time he stands in the bowl and gets ready to poop, I need to lift up his legs and put them on the toilet seat. Obviously, he does not like this; most of the time, he resets, turns around, scratches the litter, repositions himself on the litter, only to have me interrupt him and move his legs onto the seat again.

I was getting worried that my corrections on his pooping posture might be interpreted as corrections on his pooping in general -- Kratos might conclude that it is bad to poop in the toilet, or that it is bad to poop in my presence (or, to poop at all!). To make myself a welcome presence while Kratos poops, then, I bought some special treats that I give him only immediately after he pees or poops with my correction. Hopefully, this complicated mixture of positive and negative signals will somehow send the right message...

Kratos seems to be enjoying his treats so far, but the training is taking much longer than I expected. It's annoying to deal with his bowl every time I use the bathroom, and it's stressful to monitor him constantly to make my corrections. If he doesn't make some break through any time soon, it might be time to start giving up...