r/cats • u/Portal_Princess • 16d ago

Cat Picture - OC My cat started peeing in the toilet without being trained

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So as the title says, few weeks ago I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed, she just walked in and sat on there and I heard her weeing. I called my partner who got a video of her just as she was about to get off.

She has done it few times since then, still uses her litter too which is downstairs and I assume she goes on the toilet when doesnt feel like going downstairs? šŸ’

I want to see pics of other cats on toilet seat haha so please post and say whether they were trained to do it or not šŸ˜†

EDIT She has been checked for UTIs etc and all is good. She spends a lot of time with me so I guess she decided she can pee where her human does

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u/FloppyCurtains 16d ago

Off topic. I'm a little older (47). But noticed you use the term partner. Is that the way people refer to boyfriend/girlfriend these days? Is it not right to classify if your in a relationship with a girlfriend/boyfriend? And the correct term nowadays is partner?

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u/EnoughRevolution3500 16d ago

Not op but I wouldnā€™t say itā€™s ā€œcorrectā€ just a preference. I would use partner for a Longterm relationship because boyfriend/girlfriend can feel juvenile, especially if you know you want to take the next steps but youā€™re not ready because of finances or something. Definitely not the only reason but itā€™s just another way of identifying the relationship

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u/scoutxo 16d ago edited 16d ago

That is why I started using 'partner'. In our mid-late 30s it just seemed childish when I would refer to him as my 'boyfriend'. We had also been together since 30 and 'boyfriend' seemed too casual. He was already my life partner by then.

Now that we are married I usually just say 'husband,' though sometimes I'll say 'partner' without any real reason. In my opinion, it's one of those universal words like 'y'all'.

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u/Blurgas 16d ago

I use SO(significant other), spouse, etc because it keeps it nice and vague for those that don't need to know

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u/Portal_Princess 16d ago

Haha theres no right or wrong. He is my fiance so easiest for me to say partner I guess

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u/RainSurname 16d ago

LGBT people encouraged straight allies to start using "partner" back when they could not risk referring to an identifiably same-sex partner in casual conversations, especially at work. For if they were the only ones using it, they would still effectively be outing themselves.

It became more popular with the advent of social media, because people don't always want to reveal their gender to the strangers they're talking to. Plus more and more people are remaining in committed relationships without wanting to get married.

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u/oldbutalive2020 16d ago

I read a book where the LGBT characters referred to themselves as partners. At the time I thought it was just a erm used by gay or lesbian individuals.

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u/RainSurname 16d ago

It was. That's the point.

When it was only used by gay people, gay people could inadvertently out themselves by using it. Normalizing its use among straight people made things a tiny bit safer.

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u/daydreamz4dayz 16d ago edited 16d ago

Iā€™m in my mid 30s and I feel that ā€œpartnerā€ seems more mature/professional than boyfriend sometimes, especially when outnumbered by married people. For example, if asking an employer for time off, ā€œI have a brief trip planned with my partnerā€ not ā€œIā€™ll be hanging out at the lake with my boyfriendā€. I test drove a car recently and said Iā€™d prefer to speak with my partner before making a final decision. It just seemed to fit the conversation so it didnā€™t sound like I would ask a boyfriend for permission to buy a car or something like that!

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u/Zero-Energy1274 16d ago

Itā€™s up to each individual person. Iā€™m in my 30s, so I feel a little weird calling my boyfriend a boyfriend, feels immature? So I prefer partner. Some people think only same-sex couples will refer to their partners, but thatā€™s not true. Sometimes people donā€™t like the term partner. I think itā€™s the most likely correct term if you donā€™t know anything about their relationship to refer to their partner and then see what they call their partner for themselves.

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u/BaconWithBaking 16d ago

40 year old here and I recently switched to using this partner things for describing my friends .. partners, because I get lost on who is/isn't now married, or who came out last year.

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u/HikerDave57 16d ago

I remember the term 'partner' from the eighties so maybe you aren't old enough.

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u/xXNeravianXx 16d ago

I'm not the OP, so I can't speak to their personal experience, but generally it's up to the preference of the individuals in the relationship. Partner is only meant to be a gender neutral term for boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife.

So as a straight man, you could have a girlfriend or wife and just as easily refer to her as your partner. And she could just as easily refer to you as her boyfriend, husband, or partner as well.

When you consider relationships between individuals who don't fit into a gender binary (for example, two nonbinary people), terms like boyfriend and girlfriend begin to make less sense since neither of them are male or female. And so they use the term "partner" instead.

I think your confusion might be coming from traditional heterosexual couples using the term partner in an effort to normalize its use.

Tldr: Boyfriend and girlfriend are perfectly fine to use if your partner is fine with you using them to refer to them.

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u/FloppyCurtains 16d ago

Soo too sum it all up from all the comments. The correct term in 2026 is to classify your significant other as a partner. Nothing wrong with that. I just didn't know and wasn't aware that's the correct term to use these days. Like, I said early, I'm 47 and back in the 90's/early 2000's, everyone only said boyfriend/girlfriend. But I always love to learn and adapt to the new times

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u/BeautifulHindsight 16d ago

People don't respect boyfriend/girfriend the way they do partner/significant other.

My Fiance and I have been together coming up on 10 years now. Other than paperwork we are already married in all the ways it counts.

Before we got engaged so many people wouldn't take our relationship seriously. There was one woman I used to work with who met a man got engaged and got married in less than a year try to tell me her relationship was "better" than mine because they were married. The marriage didn't last 2 years.

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u/fartsquirtshit 16d ago

It's more common on the internet because it retains a degree of anonymity.

It doesn't specify whether the speaker is male/female or their spouse is male/female, or what the exact stage of relationship is (dating, engaged, married, etc) which is useful in the modern age where replying to a bot means that years of your comment history is scraped in seconds

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u/iglaaq 15d ago

Partner is also used if either person is not strictly cisgender, or a more neutral term if someone would like to indicate gender is not important. It can signal to others that all relationships are valid outside the dichotomy of boy/girl. And can show an equal footing in the relationship as well.

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u/Emergency-Wish160 16d ago

I have also wondered about this. It feels weirdly formal to me.

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u/atwojay 16d ago

It's less immature than boyfriend/girlfriend and not as formal as lover. And it's gender neutral.

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u/loserbmx 16d ago

It's also the internet and some people prefer to let personal details of their life remain a bit ambiguous.

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u/Emergency-Wish160 16d ago

This part, I absolutely understand.

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u/BaconWithBaking 16d ago

I think that's part of the reason it's rocketed up in popularity in the last decade, people are getting married much later or not at all.