Cats Meet the Robot

For the next few days, I changed nothing in our litter box setup. The Robot was simply sitting in the kitchen, full of pristine litter, with a small clump in it that I had taken from their old box in the bathroom. They knew this was supposed to be for them.

I knew they knew, because they would come to me in the living room, and look up at me, their faces full of questions. While Mr. Bond and Puffy had nothing in common except being cats, they had banded together in this crisis.

Every time they did this, I would follow them into the kitchen, point to the Robot, and go into a sales spiel like a Ginsu Knives demonstrator. “This is your new litter box. The litter will always be clean! We will all be so happy!”

They would look at each other and go off separately to think. In a little while, they would be back. What was that again?

At the end of one of my sales pitches, Mr. Bond turned to go, then turned back to Puffy, still staring at it. He used his nose to nudge Puffy towards it. The message was clear. You try it out.

By the time the weekend rolled around, things were still in stasis. No one had used the Robot; there wasn’t even a pawprint in the litter. I had given considerable thought to Puffy’s mental processes.

Far more, in fact, than he was capable of giving. He wouldn’t be using the Robot until I conveyed the concept to him with my favorite cat technique, psychodrama.

At this point the Robot was not plugged in. Mr. Bond knew it moved, but it was while I was standing there. As far as he knew at this point, it would only move when I triggered it. I knew this would reassure him about exploring it when I was not around.

Puffy still didn’t know it moved at all.

Saturday morning I simply emptied the old box and cleaned up the bathroom floor. Many people have the litter box in the bathroom, out of space considerations and an expression of its utility matching the room. An open litter box would be more obnoxious elsewhere, it’s true, but the humidity in the bathroom had always made clumping litter a mixed blessing there. I was glad to see it go!

Since I had space considerations that kept me from putting the Robot in the old place, and aesthetic considerations that kept me from putting their old box in the kitchen, (the only reason we would consider the Robot in the kitchen was its self-contained nature,) I decided to use my understanding of both cats’ psychology to help them make the transition.

For Puffy, this was cleaning up the old box, filling it with empty plastic soda bottles and catalogs, and placing it in front of the Robot.

Then I watched.

Soon enough, I saw Puffy go into the bathroom… only to come out, completely flummoxed, and sit in the living room for fifteen minutes, trying to figure it out. He’s always been a good boy who loves his box, and he has moved into new places a few times, so I let him come to his own conclusions, which were that the box had moved, and he should search for it.

I followed him in his search, which encouraged him, and he discovered his old litter box in the kitchen. As he approached it happily, he was stymied once again. It was full of that which must not be whizzed on!

So as he looked around, puzzled, he saw that there was litter in the Robot. Connections, always elusive with Puffy, lined up like planet configurations. I withdrew, and spied him getting into the Robot and using it.

Joy ensued.

I was confident. If Puffy, quite possibly the World’s Dimmest Cat,* could figure it out, certainly Mr. Bond, Intellectual Giant, could grasp it. I was right. Mr. Bond had grasped the implications immediately.

And he didn’t like them.

Puffy weighs a little over five pounds. Mr. Bond is a 15 pound Norwegian Forest Cat mix. And a percher, which means that he sits upright with his paws on the edge of the box to do his business. For Puffy, little had changed except a different location and improved privacy, so he was one happy camper. Mr. Bond had far more challenges.

I spent the day luring Mr. Bond into the Robot with treats. He would go in willingly enough, even stay in there, to circle a couple of times and then come out with a reproachful look on his face. I was asking the impossible, he was clearly saying. I reluctantly agreed. When he started pawing the kitty grass with a Don’t make me do this look on his face, I broke down and put the old box back.

He was grateful. I was despairing. Dear Husband pointed out that it would take time with Mr. Bond, whose middle name was Caution. It turned out Puffy scorned his old box. He loved the Litter Robot. I let it cycle when he was out of the room, keeping the litter clean.

And the deadline approached.

Read more… The End Game

*We love him dearly. That’s just the facts.