Schedules and demands

I work.

Like a fiend.

Seriously, I work two jobs, and go to school 6 credits per semester.  Plus, I'm in love with a man who lives roughly 700 miles away.  We visit as often as is possible, and often that means at least 4 days per month, I am with him, and 4 days he is with me.

You can see easily how this makes even the most self-reliant of pets a legitimate cause for concern, rendering the need for an on-call babysitter less of a luxury and more of a necessity.

I have a lovely roommate, and he could do it, but he's really not into the kitties, and I don't want him to feel put upon by my lifestyle choices.

I also have my two adult children, who are always looking for money.  They can come over and house-sit, and fortunately have always been willing - even for the paltry $10/day I give them to come over twice a day and scoop the cat poop and feed and play with the kitties.

Well, you see, that's really where the trouble begins.

I'm OK with the cats, and love them and all, but I just can't stand a house that smells, well, like a cat pan.  So, I basically scoop the cat poop every day and night, and sweep up or vacuum the scattered litter at the same frequency.  It's a bit of a burden.

In addition, the kitty sitting adds to the cost of going out of town, and there is always the chance that the kids are busy, or lose interest and say no - making it an actual problem.  So, there, I'm fastidious and cheap.  I began to search for solutions almost immediately upon adopting them into my household.

I decided that it would probably be the best thing to try to potty train them.

Not like *use the litter pan* kind of potty training; rather, I wanted to teach the kitties who to use the toilet.  It reduces the cost of the litter (to $0), and the trouble of having it tracked about (I can't stand walking on the little granules).  And so, I started my research.

With me, all good things, and decisions begin with copious amounts of research.  I read blogs, and saw YouTube videos, and researched homemade and commercial solutions for my little problem.

I finally decided to try a commercial product called Litter Kwitter, in spite of the fact that I'm automatically turned off by product names with intentionally misspelled words.  I looked at it and decided it was a good option.  I went home and immediately began to put it into use.

The process as outlined included slowly working the kitties to using the device while it was installed on the toilet.  I eliminated the old pan (happily) and put the new one on the floor in the bathroom, beside the toilet.  Then after they had acclimated to that tried to just jump ahead and put it straight onto the toilet and see what happened rather than propping it up slowly on books, etc.  I didn't want my books getting all ruined, and I wanted to see if they would just adjust.

They did, it was a snap, the very first day, they were jumping up on the toilet and using the fancy pan installed over the bowl.

This is going to be easy, I thought.