It’s in the bag. Toilet Training: week I

That’s a wrap. Gizmo survived her first week of toilet training psychologically intact. Want the scoop?

As per the CitiKitty training guide, we’ve taken things slowly, moving the litter box closer and closer to the toilet in baby steps. It’s now at the halfway mark between the toilet, and its original spot.

Everything went smoothly—except for one little, yellow puddle pooling in the bottom of the bathtub. In her defense, there were some extenuating circumstances. (More on that next post.)

I did, however, gloss over one major detail—mostly for financial reasons. That is, swapping out her old litter for the new, flushable kind first. Cats can be finicky about just about everything. That trait doesn’t stop with kitty litter. A point emphasized by jazz giant Charles Mingus after he successfully trained cat Nightlife back in the day when flushable litter was called newspaper, and probably cost about a nickel.

All changes should be gradual.

Yet flushable litter is not so easy to find in big-box stores, like Petco. Ordering a slew of 12-lbs. bags online from CitiKitty with a shipping-and-handling charge of $11 a pop is just not in my monthly budget—or Gizmo’s. It makes good, old-fashioned newspaper look not so bad. (Hmm, I have a paper shredder.)

For now, my financially conservative plan is to start sprinkling the new litter on top of the old throughout next week and take my chances. On the other hand, I really want this to work. What price is too steep to never have to share a small bathroom with a someone who uses a litter box (and bathtub) again?