Day 65 -- Way too early to celebrate

One thing is certain -- Kratos does not like pooping on the toilet. Since I last posted the video of Kratos using the toilet, Kratos has pooped on the carpet. Twice.

Something about the last pooping video bothered me -- Kratos kept shifting his weight around, something that I'd never seen him do. He looked... uncomfortable. Almost... in pain.

A thought occurred to me: could Kratos be constipated?

According to some research online, cats in toilet-training are more prone to constipation; they are uncomfortable with their new set-up, and so they tend to hold it in a little longer, making their poop drier and potentially more painful to excrete. I also looked through his cat food's ingredient list, and found an extremely constipating culprit -- dried beet pulp! I didn't want him to associate the discomfort of constipation with using the toilet, so I went out and bought him some new, more fibrous cat food, and switched to feeding more wet food as well.

It worked, kind of. Kratos pooped once in the evening, and immediately again the following morning -- way more often than normal, but both times on the carpet. The new diet made it easier for him to poop, but Krats did not forget the discomfort of pooping on the toilet. He can still pee just fine on the toilet, which, I guess, confirms my theory.

Worried that Kratos would start forming a habit of pooping on the carpet, I started an intensive watch on his every move over the weekend. It was excruciating. After his two accidents, he refused to poop, no matter how much he ate or how many times I placed him on the toilet. Eventually, it was pushing past 2:30am, so I gave up and headed into my bedroom to catch some sleep.

And then I heard a long, mournful meow. And then another.

Curious, I went out, and saw Kratos pacing around the living room. He was walking in circles, sniffing and stopping almost randomly, until I realized that it was not randomly at all -- he was paying a visit to every place on the carpet that he has ever pooped before. Kratos had never pooped in the same place on the carpet twice, so I always thought he was not keeping track of where he last pooped. As it turned out, he remembered every single one of them.

He circled around for a while, meowing, sniffing, pausing. Eventually, he came upon a new spot -- one that he had not pooped on before. He scratched the carpet a little bit, and then sat down. Suddenly, I recognized that the scratching motion is the same as what he used to do to litter, and saw that his back was starting to arch. I yelled out his name; "Kratos! Kratos!" Normally, he would turn around or run away, but this time, nothing. He was clearly concentrating, and it was clearly happening! I ran up to him, picked him right off the floor and placed him immediately on the toilet seat. He positioned himself quickly on the seat, and started pooping. Whew! A crisis narrowly averted.

Obviously, this worries me greatly. Just before the incident, I had locked him in the bathroom with myself in an intensive pooping session, and he barely even tried. Right after I let him out, he clearly became distressed, looking for a place to poop without even considering the toilet. Does Kratos dislike the toilet that much?

I don't know. It is 1am, and Kratos still hasn't pooped yet today. I need to be able to convince him that pooping on the toilet is unrelated to constipation, and indeed, that it is quite a joyous and pleasant thing. But I can't do it if the only time I can get him to poop on the toilet is right before he poops on the carpet!

Sigh. Clearly, it was way too early to celebrate.