Learning Cat Language – Way of Cats blog

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I tried to make the old box less appealing. While I’d always cleaned it at least once a day, now I let it go a bit. Mr. Bond kept using it. I put a trash basket in front of it. Mr. Bond took another route to get to it. I blocked off part of it with cardboard boxes. Mr. Bond became a target shooter.

When D-Day came, Mr. Bond was still not using the Robot.

Many people would have declared the experiment a failure and returned it, the source of the occasional reconditioned boxes becoming available. But I was not ready to give up on my dream yet.

After all, my litter chores had been cut in half. The Robot was working properly, and Puffy loved it. New cats, especially kittens, should adapt with no problem.

We decided to keep it, and teach Mr. Bond to use the toilet.

I had earlier discarded toilet training because Puffy has been known to fall off kitchen tables. There was no way he could master the balancing act required. But Mr. Bond was a different proposition.

He was agile, and already liked balancing on the toilet seat to gain access to the bathroom vanity. Toilet training would fit right in with his preferred method of using the litter, and his old box was in the same room. He was bright enough to see the advantages, to him, especially compared to his old box which had suffered from my adaptations.

So I started looking for the right bowl to fit in the toilet seat. This led to a lot of selecting aluminum bowls in the kitchen section, and sneaking over to the plumbing section to see how they fit. After committing to the Robot, I didn’t want to spend money on a kit when I already had the fundamentals and just needed the appropriate training aid.

My plan was to fill the aluminum bowl with flushable litter. The bowl had to be sturdy and unbreakable; Mr. Bond was a big cat, and dumping him in the toilet would be disastrous. If any litter got into the toilet, it had to be the kind that wouldn’t mess up the toilet system, and then I could easily get rid of the litter clumps that way.

This would be a workable transition. We could keep the bowl there, I would show it to him, and explain its purpose. It would always be cleaner than his ratty old box, and more comfortable. Once he was reliably using the bowl, I would take away the old box. Once he weathered that change, I would take away the bowl.

The scientist part of me was looking forward to the new experience. I finally found the right bowl. We were waiting for a time when I had more than a weekend to devote to introducing this new concept to Mr. Bond… when I happened to see him using the Litter Robot.

He’d discovered that if he got in, turned around, and stuck his head out the door, it would work for him.

I had the old box gone so fast he just sat in the hallway with a round-eyed look. Yes, he’d still been using it, but due to my adjustments I didn’t know he’d been using it less. What I figured must have happened was that he would use the old box when the litter had just been cleaned. But when the old box got dirty, he would be driven to seek out the always clean litter in the Robot.

Thus, demonstrating the overwhelming attraction of clean litter. Of course, he had been observing Puffy using it. And Puffy had not been whirled around, eaten, or had his limbs exchanged with fly parts. Encouraged, and motivated, Mr. Bond voluntarily figured out a way he could use the Robot.

Joy spread throughout the kingdom.

Mr. Bond’s security issues made him reluctant to give up his old box, which was why he was hiding his Robot usage. But I didn’t have a bit of trouble after I took it away. I hugged him and fussed over him and told him how happy the Robot was going to make all of us.

And so it was.

With both cats using it, we started plugging it in and letting it do its automatic thing. By this time, Puffy was totally acclimated to using it, and the sensors worked reliably so that it never triggered while he was in it. In fact, I used to see him reach into the rolling globe, carefully avoiding putting his weight on the step, in a fruitless attempt to cover the clumps the Robot’s cleaning action was uncovering. Eventually, he stopped doing this, realizing the Robot would take his clumps away for him.

Mr. Bond has become the Robot Supervisor. When we first plugged it in for automatic, Mr. Bond came to us and wanted to show us something in the kitchen. We came in and stared at the object he wanted us to stare at: the Robot.

I realized what was going on. “He’s telling us the lights are on. It’s armed! He wants to know if it’s okay to go in there.”

Dear Husband stared at me, instead. “Come on. He’s keeping track of the lights?”

“Watch.” I unplugged the Robot and we discreetly withdrew. Mr. Bond went into the Robot.

“See? He is keeping track of the lights on the front.”

“Well, I suppose I could cover the lights with some electrical tape…”

“No, he’ll think we’re up to something. He just needs the lights explained.” We waited the seven minutes the Robot normally would, and all three of us went back into the kitchen. I plugged it back in and we watched it do its thing.

“See, Mr. Bond, the lights tell you when it’s okay. The yellow means it’s cleaning. The red one goes on when it’s waiting for the cleaning cycle. Now, look, the green one is saying it’s all okay. Green means go.”

Now Mr. Bond is the one who comes to us when the litter is unbalanced in the globe, and the red light is flashing. We reset it and he’s happy again. He watches the cleaning/bag changing ritual. He often hangs out in the hallway to watch it go.

Just as I’d hoped, RJ, the new kitten, took to the Litter Robot right away.

As he gets bigger, he’s gradually adjusting his behavior to allow for his new dimensions.

The Robot was a definite factor in us being able to be there to rescue him.

We had room for another cat, but not another litter box.

Four years later, with three cats, the old Robot was showing signs of wear, so who was the first one to say it’s time to replace it?

Dear Husband.

With the time I’ve saved, I was able to do more things.

Like start this blog.

What happened with my friend, whose mother set the whole thing in motion? My friend thought I was a little whacked, spending all that money on a Robot, so she got her mother an Omega Paw. Which is a nice product, but requires someone to be able to roll it over and back periodically.

So last year, my friend’s mother got a Litter Robot. She loves it.

I got a hug.