Can you toilet train a cat?

My cat will not step into the litter box when he uses it. He perches all 4 feet on the side of it! I was thinking how I wish I could get him to do that on the toilet instead. I know I've heard of cats being toilet trained but has anyone here actually done it?

I haven't done it myself, but I've seen videos of cats doing it online. I suppose it can be done, but I've never tried to train an older cat before. Our cats are approximately 3-4 years old now, so I don't know how much luck we would have getting them to do this. The other thing is I'm not sure if I would like them doing this either. On one hand it would be convenient, but on the other hand, what if you had guests over and the cat stopped in and left a "present" before one of your guests used the restroom.

Cats are funny aren't they with all their little mannerisms. I have never had a cat do that, but yes I did see it online. I used to mostly encourage my cats to go outside when they needed to go, we had a cat door for them to get in and out, however at night time I would put out litter and keep them inside. I never had one that would perch on the side of the litter box. That being said you can teach cats to do certain things, it just takes time and patience and it is a lot more difficult than training a dog.

For example my cat used to catch a lot of mice and insisted on playing with them, letting them go and catching them again, however sometime he really let the mouse go. I did not want that so I began to take the mouse away from my cat and killed the mouse myself and disposing it in the garbage, he did not take long to learn that if he was not going to kill or eat the mouse, he would lose it. It worked, he started eating them. We lived on a farm and there were mice everywhere, and the last place I wanted them was in the house so it was a little game between us for a few weeks. But he was excellent at catching them, if one was stupid enough to come out from behind the stove or fridge where they hid, my cat never missed.

We keep some plastic store bags near our litter box, to scoop the litter into when disposing it. Our one cat has this whole ritual where she will pull several of the bags out and cover the whole litter box, then knead the bags into the litter to completely cover it all. It's hilarious watching her do it, because she looks like she is doing something very habitually and with a specific purpose - like she knows what she's doing. If she see's you watching her do it, she will stop and look at you like, "what? don't mind me..."

I have heard of people doing it and having success with it but no one that I know personally, but I know Jinxie could do it ;-)

LOL this question reminded me of one of my FAVORITE movies: Meet The Parents. I know it's an older movie but if you have not seen it, you have got to watch it! It is sooo funny!

I won't go into too much detail about the movie and spoil it for the ones who haven't seen it, but there is a scene in the movie where the cat (Jinxie) uses the toilet and actually flushes it. In doing so, a plumbing issue floods the entire backyard just in time for the backyard wedding that was supposed to take place that particular weekend.

The incident gets blamed on Greg Focker (the guy who is "meeting the parents") It just continues to get worse and keeps going downhill from there with several other hilarious mishaps in the movie.

I also heard about that. However, honestly I gave up to train my cat to do so.

It would be wonderful, and hilarious, to see my cats go to the toilet. Fortunately, I don't have any problems with my cats using the litterbox, and they mostly go outside to do their business. Besides, being 4 people in the household with only 2 toilets, having to wait for the cats finishing on the toilet would probably bring more irritation than relaxation. Hehe.

They can!

My brother has trained both of his Siamese cats to use the toilet. He uses a system similar to the CitiKitty one, where you cover the toilet bowl with a removable kitty litter tray so the cat gets used to the positioning it needs to use over the bowl. Eventually you get rid of the litter portion and the cat simply uses the toilet.

Obviously it takes a little time, so you have to be patient. Also you will have to remove the litter portion if and when you need to use that toilet yourself. But I have seen the cats do it, so I know for a fact it is not a myth!

Neither of them know how to flush, but his toilet does not have a handle for that, so I don't blame the cats

It is extremely difficult to train a cat. What you are succeeding in doing is putting him through a lot of anxiety. Leave him alone. Don't try to make him human. Let him be.

(09-26-2013 12:50 AM)oltltli Wrote:  It is extremely difficult to train a cat. What you are succeeding in doing is putting him through a lot of anxiety. Leave him alone. Don't try to make him human. Let him be.

Cats are actually not particularly hard to train. After all, if your cat uses a litter box now that is only because you trained them to do so. There are no plastic boxes full of pleasantly scented gravel in the wild

You just need to remember that their attention spans are shorter than a dogs, so you get fewer repetitions in each training session.

Have you tried putting your cats paws in his litter box and just let him stand there a while in there with the littler on his paws? If not, try that and it might work that he goes to the litter box. That's how they come to believe that they own the litter. Also keep the box in the same spot all the time. Cats get anxeity when the litter box is moved...If you are moving the box, you might have to retrain them for them to get used to the transition. I hope that this helps.

As far as cats being toilet trained, I haven't done it myself, but I know someone who did. They do have to be comfortible with the litter for you to toilet train them.