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?!!?