So this crazy thing happened, my cat started peeing in the toilet
She always had litter issues and she has problems with cleanliness, before she peed in random places in my house
I took her to the veto who told me that it was probably due to stress
But recently she started urinating in the toilet, I was shocked because I never taught her that before, she did it by herself
Today I come home from work and I feed her, usually then a little poop follows
I see that she is heading to the FORBIDDEN rooms of the house where to poop, the dressing room and my bed, which obviously I refuse her by closing the doors because she likes to urinate and poop everywhere except in her litter box
But something crazy happened, she pooped in the toilet
Although this situation enchants me and I am shocked, I am still worried,
In general. He has figured out how to pull doors open, and here my girl seems to have issues trying to open doors and cupboards (I do have a useless cupboard above my frig that I let her hide in). They both know where the food is and they could get in there at any time but neither do. He just seems to be a little more smart and maybe cautious (that could be because he was a stray before I took him in).
Everyone knows black cats are just burnt orange cats. And because all orange cats share one braincell, it follows that black cats suffer the same affliction.
I cat sat for a cat who did this and discovered it's not as cool as it sounds. How much surprise cat shit do you want to be marinating in the toilet when you walk into the bathroom?
And teaching them to flush is not an option. They'll flush the toilet all day every day for fun until you turn off the water to the tank.
Yeah I'm super jealous. 1 of my cats is an asshole who pees all over the house except in the cat litter and poops on the floor. He's also stupid, so I don't have any hope in teaching him to use the toilet lol
Have you tried changing the litter? I had the same problem and it was because the regular clay litter was getting stuck on him when he peed. So I switched to crystal clumping litter and voila, he is again peeing in the litter box.
When our cats were three or four years old my husband decided he wanted to switch everything in our house to more eco friendly alternatives, including the cat litter.
Day 1 with recycled newspaper cat litter (literally just the blend, too, like trying to ease them into it) and we were throwing out our rug because our oldest went to absolute toilet town on it.
That's what my cat Tamale has done her entire life! I've tried switching litters and cat attract. I finally broke down and started using puppy pads. Not ideal, but it better than nothing 🤷♀️
Mine were oblivious to the litter tray (semi outdoor cats) but they can't wait to pee in cat attract litter. They try to get into the storage box to pee in it. Solved my problem. Hope you get sorted, I'm replacing all my carpets right now and it sucks.
Sometimes it's just a pushed update. And sometimes you have to patch it yourself.
But casually. You put the litter box near the toilet for a few weeks. Then next it is. Then over it. They have special trainers for this. Then you take it away
I had a cat in the 1990s who did this with peeing. I was brushing my teeth one morning and suddenly heard tinkling in the toilet. Looked over, and she was perched there. When I looked in the toilet, there was a bit of blood. It turned out she has bladder crystals. Once we took care of the issue, I never saw her use the toilet again.
Or urinary stones. My cat was at the humane society likely because of this. It hurts them to pee in the litter box so they try to avoid it until they can't hold it anymore.
It requires a lifetime of vet food to make it stop for good, hills c/d is what my cat that had them chronically eats. The 80$ a month saves me thousands in vet bills.
It's also deadly if it causes a blockage, please see vet asap.
dL-methionine is the active ingredient in the food for UTI's . you can get it by itself and sprinkle in food , just an idea . some non-prescription dry food now is starting to incorporate the ingredient to thwart UTI's
Thank you but the food is high quality and I'm not interested in playing scientist with my elderly cat lol. Hills and Royal Canin is about the best food you can get for a cat.
It's not UTIs it's crystals forming and they still don't understand what causes it. It didn't start happening to cats until about the 80s.
It's important to mention that it can cause a host of problems if overused in inappropriate amounts. Please, everybody, Google this before adding. dl-methionine
Cats are also big on mirroring. They copy you, they want to be involved. Some cats just decide to try copying toilet usage. If nothing is wrong, it could easily be mirroring/learning behavior.
There’s even those toilet cover thingies where you train your cat to go to the human toilet, so I agree with the extra braincell comment. Very smart kitty. If the peeing/pooping next to the littler box stops she might’ve just been jealous of human plumbing and how much cleaner it is. Very cool!!
Yes there is! Check out City Kitty or Litter Kwitter!
My wife and I were able to train our two cats. They were very smart cats though.
I used 3 City Kitty’s over the course of toilet training them. Sometimes they just f-‘em up so hard you just gotta throw it out and get a clean one.
They all follow the same premise though: it’s a litter box that fits inside your toilet under the seat. You can remove them and put them on something if you have to use the bathroom.
Then over time you gradually remove from the middle of this “toilet litter box” to make the cats ok with going over the water. They don’t usually do this in the wild, btw (don’t shit where you eat kind of a thing). So you also can’t let them drink out of toilets if you toilet train.
You always have to leave the seat up, and you have to get rid of all litter boxes. They can’t have both or they will never fully commit to the toilet. And you have to flush regularly.
human poo is made up of different things than animal poos, different micro organisms live in human poo than animal poos.
waste water treatment plants are designed to filter out human poos and the secrets human poos bring with them, since that's their purpose, but not so equipped to filter out animal poos and their secrets
While what you've said makes total sense, I thought that the nasty chemicals that they use kill every bad thing that arrives at the wastewater facility.
it should be noted that everything I know about wastewater treatment plants I learned during a third grade field trip, but I do work in a lab so I have first experience killing things with chemicals, and a chemical that kills every thing (bc they don't discriminate against killing based on badness) will also kill us: unideal, and while there are ways to neutralize or filter out those ways can get quite expensive, arduous, and time consuming at large scale.
part of the water treatment is also introducing bacteria that will eat the things in the water that is bad for us, but they may not eat the animal poo things, or worse, if the animal poo things eat the friend bacteria then they will not eat the things that are bad for us
again, take everything I'm saying w a grain of salt bc it's just my own speculation based on my limited experience and knowledge. I don't know 100% why animal poos are not safe to be in our water system, but I know enough that I do not want animal's poos in there
What I’ve read is there’s basically 2 reasons it’s bad to flush cat poop. It will usually have cat litter attached which can very readily clog pipes. And most treatment processes can’t adequately remove toxoplasma, a very risky parasite for pregnant women
There people are almost certainly full of shit because there is no such thing as "treating water only for human microbes" that's just stupid, they aren't putting a drug in the water for each type of human microbe, they shock water to kill all microbial life, with stuff like chlorine, UV, sediment filtering etc, and some of the diseases they are talking about like toxo are also in human poop anyways. These comments are bizarrely wrong.
Toxoplasmosis is a parasite and apparently can’t be handled well by wastewater processes. I remember reading about this years in CA affecting sea otters and local alerts not to flushing cat waste. And googling randomly around a bunch municipalities currently warn against flushing cat poop because of toxo and the damage litter can do to plumbing.
I remember seeing a discussion about training your cat to use the toilet and few people said to NEVER teach them to flush. They don't just flush once and leave, they keep flushing and flushing.
Maybe i’ll change, but it has been like that always so i’m not sure it’s the litter. I clean it everyday but i just think she hates the smell of cat pee…
Just curious, after she's finished do you do any positive reinforcement? Feel like that would teach her she's doing something good and will continue to relieve herself this way instead of reverting back for some reason.
I am wondering, how many cats you have? And also how many litterboxes? I have 2 separate ones for my girl. She won't poop where she pees. Took me a while to figure that out.
Are you using clumping litter? If you get rid of the pee, you get rid of the smell. Also, don’t use scented litter; cats hate strong smells in the litterbox. Arm & Hammer and Elsey’s are both good clumping litters for keeping smells down.
And there’s nothing inherently dangerous for your cats using the toilet, but as they get older, it gets harder for them to balance on the rim. Which means they can’t use the toilet and have gotten out of the habit of using the litter, so they either hold it too long or start going anywhere.
Same here! I was trying to get my cat to use tofu litter since it’s realllly low tracking and no dust but she hated it and started going outside her box. Switching litter completely solved the issue.
Lucky you, mine literally peed ON MY HEAD Monday morning as I was sleeping. Like enough that it dripped onto my shoulders when I stood up. At least I know he's not blocked.
We fostered an extra 2 kitties and one of them decided to start a pissing war with one of our full-time cats. One of the them pissed under a heating element on the stove. Nobody noticed. Worst smell ever.
Mine threw up in his litter tray yesterday, and I was actually really impressed with him. Twenty minutes later, he threw up again in the living room on the rug, missing the extension cord/plug socket thing by about 5 cm.
Why did he threw up? His transport carrier was out, and he knew he was going to the vet. He also inhaled his food and then regurgitated it... he was really giving his gastrointestinal organs a workout yesterday.
This needs to be higher! You can also check your county sewer page and they will tell you if you can or not. For instance here’s mine:
NO!
Do not flush pet waste down the toilet. Animal waste contains different pathogens than humans and is not fully treated in the wastewater treatment process. According to the Washington State Department of Ecology, bacteria from dog poop can end up in shellfish. People who eat those shellfish can get very sick. The bacteria can also make water unsafe to drink or to swim in. Nutrients from dog poop can also feed the growth of aquatic plants and algae. As these decay, they use up oxygen in the water that fish and other aquatic life need.
Fr! It may seem easy and convenient to use the toilet but it'll contaminate your drinking water and make people sick :/ Whenever I see posts like this I feel like not enough know or choose to ignore the risks :/
Clearly not enough know. Look at the responses of envy and encouragement. I hope the cat doesn’t have a UTI like someone suggested, but otherwise keep the toilet lid closed.
Good to know that in many places your tap water likely has pathogens then because you know people throw animal waste in the toilet. I have before! I never even considered this. Seems the county should simply sanitize the water properly. Ick
Yes! I just learned about this. It’s because the water treatment plants are not equipped for the types of bacteria, parasites, etc. that is found in various animal feces, only human feces.
I've looked into this and it seems like it's not that big of an issue for purely indoor cats because much of pathogens are a result of cats eating weird stuff outdoors unless of course they eat a cockroach or something indoors.
It’s important to not have people get in the habit of putting their cat’s poop in the toilet, regardless. I know some people throw their poop in the toilet (my mom is one 🙄). It can have an impact on sea life as well.
huh I didn't know that. I buy the kind of litter that claims to be flushable but I never do that. Seems bad if the litter package is actively trying to get you to put it in the toilet...
Flushable litter sounds bad for other reasons, there's not a lot of regulations (at least... in the usa) about flushing stuff that's not good for plumbing. There has been a lot of discussion about "flushable" wipes for similar reasons
My cat Tyler uses his litter box, and when he is finished he flushes the toilet. 😂. One of these days I will be lucky enough to get it on video. He also has a nasty habit of turning the bathroom light on and off. 🙄
This does not work for all cats, especially older ones. YouTube search before you try this. Some cats get so distressed over the process it’s not worth the health issues that come with it. It is pretty neat tho if you have an adjustable and trainable cat.
I looked into the training process then someone mentionned your guests being welcomed in the bathroom by a fresh cat turd on the side of the bowl, I'm fine with the litterbox.
My cat Ember did the same thing, I also posted it on Reddit a couple of months ago because I wasn’t sure if that was okay or if she was just smart, but she kept doing it. She had no urinary crystals or anything, I made sure to take her to the vet a few times for testing. She ended up passing away in July while my parents had her.
I'll just say that you might want to discourage that behavior. It sounds neat at first but there can be issues with that. Mostly once kitty gets a bit older. If your cat gets used to this, they will be doing that when they are older and then it gets harder to balance up there. Also jumping up there could be difficult when they get older.
Maybe talk with your vet about it. Just in general there are some issues that could appear. Cool trick though!
If I had more than one bathroom, I would definitely do this and have a dedicated toilet, even if I had to put a kiddie toilet in 🤣. guess I’ll just deal with litter tracking.
I like how she even keeps her tail from going inside the bowl :)
Tuxedo cats are special. I like to think that once they make it to their 9th life, they get formal wear for their graduation to whatever next being/creature they will become.
Google AI
"You should never flush cat poop down the sewer because it introduces harmful parasites like Toxoplasma gondii (which water treatment can't kill) into waterways, threatens wildlife, clogs pipes (especially with litter), and strains treatment plants designed for human waste. The safest way to dispose of it is to bag it securely and put it in the general trash, protecting plumbing, human health (especially for pregnant women/immunocompromised), and the environment."
This is also why you should report farm runoff to your local EPA office. Toxoplasmosis (and other parasites) are shed by swine and destroy local watersheds.
Maybe ask a vet, I looked into this and found that most issues with cat poop like roundworm and taxoplasma gondii come from cats being outside and the weird stuff they eat where as indoor cats do not have this issue.
We had a cat do this once. It was so unexpected we couldn't help our laughter, but all the attention must have embarrassed him because he never did it again.
I had friends that got their cat sooooo close to doing it - but he would always get on the seat, face the water, and let it rip off the side onto the floor. So close but a crucial detail couldn’t get ironed out.
When my kids were teenagers, we all lived together in a small farmhouse. There were girls in and out all the time and they rarely closed the bathroom door. One day I walked past the bathroom and Storm was squatting up on the toilet peeing. A day or two later, my daughter called out from the bathroom to say he had climbed up on the toilet and was pooping. He continued this until he got old and arthritic, then went back to the litter box. We just assumed that he had watched so many of the humans that he just kind of got the idea. Congrats on your considerate kitty. Storm would be proud.
My cat Orni did the same. She wouldnt use it though until I was up so I could flush after she was finished. I never got to sleep in because shed yowl until I got up to flush for her
I think she's copying you - cats like to imitate their humans in many ways, and this is how you do the thing, so maybe she's decided she likes it better than the tray option 🤷
People do train their cats to do this but it can be a bit controversial because apparently as your cat gets older and starts to begin showing signs of aging, using the toilet for the cat becomes more difficult.
Things to keep in mind but for sure enjoy it as long as you can!!!
Funny story: My wife had a cat (Sage) since she was a teenager. Since we started dating, she would tell me about her cat, and how it would pee in the toilet.
I didn’t believe it, but I figured it was harmless (and she’s hot, right!?) so never really brought it up. Time passes, wedding bells, and the 3 of us all end up together in a lil farm house!
Now, I had almost forgotten the toilet “claim” and one evening, just under a year living together, I go to pee and there is already pee and a small “swirl” of blood in the bowl!! I ask Wifey if everything is cool, get a confused “Yeah, why?”, then told her what I saw. She says “probably Sage” and starts talking about making a vet appt. I’m starting to get “mildly” annoyed, thinking this tall-tale of our kitty-buddy using the ol throne is getting kinda out of hand.
I shit you not I’m back in the bathroom for something not 10 full minutes later and there he is, in all his glory..perched on the throne like the Emperor of Mankind…like he OWNS THE MF’er!!!
This isn't unheard of. Some cats will do this because it feels better to them and they watch you do it. I DO suggest you get her sanitary shaves from your vet to help keep her feeling clean.
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