Automatic Litterbox Central

I have been mostly posting in the "catseat success?" forum under the toilet training link. I thought I'd share my progress so far... this is a repost from that forum:

ok so in my last report things were going great! The cats were jumping up and using the catseat. The black tray with the smaller litter tray inserts was in use. I went from 2 small litter trays to just one of them, so that my cats would aim for the crystals they are so used to, but the poop and pee would sometimes fall into the water that was available on either side of the tray.

I should mention that we have been mostly successful using the mounted catseat with just one of the teeny litter boxes there. There was only one setback a few days ago when I found that lotus had used my umbrella in the KITCHEN to poop on. GROSS! Luckily that has been the only non-bathroom related mishap we've had in the process and she's back to using the catseat. Each night I bring her to the catseat and remind her that that's where she poops. So far so good.

I have to say, there are things I like about the catseat. Those things are:
1) cat gets used to using a toilet shaped seat while it's on the ground
2) it mounts onto the toilet so they continue using something they
re familiar with
3) the textured black fins make them more comfortable and help them know just where to aim

The things I do not like so much about the catseat:
1)it is not very comfortable for human use. It is a flat seat. Most toilet seats have a downward slant toward the bowl which pulls your asscheeks apart a bit and makes pooping easier. This seat is uncomfortable and gets dirty (the cats have very little litter to use and tend to touch their own waste while digging and then they circle the bowl, so it needs to be wiped down before each use). If you have more than one toilet in the house this isn't so bad. We only have one toilet. My roommates and I (all female) prefer to sit on the porcelain! (seat up!) to pee and poop. It's cold and it's uncomfortable but it's still more clean and comfortable than using the surface of the catseat for human use. Additionally, it mounts loosely on our toilet so it feels like we're rocking around on the seat when we use it.
2) The textured black flaps. I can't really speak for my cats, but I don't think they're fooled into thinking that by touching the flaps they're scraping litter. It's a good idea but in reality I don't think they're falling for that. It's good that they're there, though... as they slowly introduce the cats to the water below and help with aiming as I mentioned earlier.
3)The catseat confuses people. It isn't confusing to me, but I have to basically write out an instruction manual for guests who use the bathroom. I have not been having many guests as a result during this time of training. But that's ok with me.

I have decided to integrate methods of toilet training. I still have the catseat mounted, and today I removed the black trays and the holder of the little trays all together so all that's left is the seat and the retractable black flaps. I went to the hardware store and bought a stainless steel mixing bowl that fit perfectly inside my toilet (under the catseat, resting on the porcelain). I have put just a little bit of litter in it and the cats are already comfortable using it. It's easier for guests and my roommates to remove in order to use the bathroom. The flaps are fully extended so the kittys see littler, but it's deeper in the toilet so they're getting used to their pee and poo falling deeper.

I am going to let them continue to get used to the stainless steel bowl
I am going to continue to slowly retract the flaps so they get used to using the toilet without the flaps.
I am going to gradually reduce the amount of crystals I use in the stainless steel bowl and then once I'm down to none I'm going to try filling the bowl up gradually with water. I might even try putting some blue aquarium gravel in the bowl of water to fool the cats into thinking that their litter is still down there.
Once the cats are getting used to the reduced litter and the increased water, I am going to switch back over to the regular toilet seat so they get used to balancing on it.

Once the cats are comfortable pooping in the water in the stainless steel bowl, I am going to remove the bowl all together and they will be toilet trained!!

My friend said it took a year to train her cat. It has been 3 weeks with the catseat, and my cats are 95% trained. She said she's very impressed with how quickly they're training, and that a contraption like the cat seat would've likely helped her cat train a lot.

One good thing about the stainless steel bowl is that they won't be kicking any more litter all over the bathroom floor because they only have so much access to it, as it is deeper in the toilet than the provided trays the catseat has.

I predict that I will be back on my normal toilet seat in a week, and hopefully the cats will be fully trained in 2-3 more weeks. That means two cats trained in less than 2 months.
TOTALLY WORTH IT!!!

Thank you catseat. And thank you http://www.karawynn.net/mishacat/toilet.html[/url]