Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I used this kit to toilet train my cats 2 years ago. My cats are still using the toilet today. My cats are young cats and are 3 years old. I started toilet training 2 cats on 1 toilet in February of 2014 while they were older kittens. I would say they didn't get used to the idea until a year later. Now they use the toilet like it's natural. I initially started training with C.O.T. Cats Of Thrones Toilet Seat for Cats Starter Kit. That kit had some serious flaws and poor instructions and caused me to mess up my training (more on that later). I decided to purchase CitiKitty in May 2014. I was able to finish toilet training with the CitiKitty and some additional tools. This review will be some what of a guide to document my success. I give this kit 4 stars instead of 5 because it isn't perfect and you need to buy additional items to ensure better chance of success! Additional items you will need: --A new toilet seat SPECIFICALLY the one made by Mayfair with the detachable child seat. The child seat is relatively flat and detaches from the main adult seat should you ever decide to not use it anymore (tip: don't do this, use it indefinitely). The whole toilet seat is relatively easy to take on and off after the install so you can clean the whole seat. There is a round version and an elongated version for different toilets: Mayfair 183SLOWA NextStep Adult Toilet Seat with Built-in Child Potty Training Seat, Elongated, White. The purpose of this seat is to make the toilet seat hole smaller so you cats feel more confident using it. You also do not have to go past punchout 5 (6 total) on the CityKitty using this seat. I found out with a full sized seat, my cat fell in one time trying to poop and that deterred him from using the toilet for while (he would poop in the sink)!! Update: it's been years since I wrote this review and there are now better toilet seat products on the market. You can use whatever brand of child toilet seat you want as long as the child seat is flat! The whole point is to make the opening smaller. --Flushable kitty litter. I used Cat's Pride Premium Scoopable Cat Litter Jug, 14-Pound (you can buy from Walmart) or chicken feed (buy from Tractor Supply Company, a farm supply store). Overall, I used up maybe 2 bags of chicken feed and 3 jugs of Cat's Pride Premium litter. Neither of these litter work well as actual litter for a litterbox but they are flushable and cheap and work for training purposes. You will be using a lot of litter. --Precious Cat Ultra Litter Attractant, 20 Ounces. This item is used to attract your cats to the foreign place to go to the bathroom as well as the new litter you might be using. Make sure you do the following: --Install new toilet seat and leave the child seat down when ever you are done using the bathroom. YES, this is an extra step you have to remember to do. Ask yourself, which is worse: having to put this child seat down every time or having to scoop the cat litter daily and have it track everywhere and have your house smell like poop? Or have your cats too scared of falling in so they stop using the toilet? I just choose to treat my cat like a child. The child seat also shields a bit of water "splash back". --Follow instructions for CitiKitty. Go slow with removing the rings. --Blend the Precious Cat Litter attractant in with the litter to send the message to your cats that the toilet is their new litter box. --Check the toilet and flush all urine and poop at least twice a day if you have 1 toilet shared with 2 cats. I do not recommend more than 2 cats per toilet!! During training, you MUST keep the litter and area clean all the times. This means vacuuming/sweeping/changing the litter and wiping the area with a pet stain cleaner like Nature's Miracle. You will waste a lot of litter (that's why I used chicken feed; costs $12 for 40 pounds). --Clean the toilet bowl and seats often. Cats will miss and can get pee on the seats. Removable seat design from the mayfair seat helps a lot! --Duct tape your toilet lid to the water reservoir. My one cat is aggressive with the burying action and she clawed at the lid one time and it shut the lid on the toilet. The lid might have shut on her, too, I don't know. I came home to find poop on the floor because cats couldn't use the toilet! --If you have to go away for a long time (a weekend) and won't be around for more than 24 hours, I recommend you bring out the litter box. If no one is there to flush, cats will poop else where with a dirty toilet! My cats have no problem going back to the toilet once the litter box is removed again. Avoid doing the following: --Don't make your cat use the adult human toilet seat. I had this problem while using the Cat of Thrones toilet seat. My cat fell in once and started using the bathtub and the sink! I now have to put a bucket in my sink and leave 1 inch of water in my tub as deterrent because my one cat now prefers to poop in these spots instead if the toilet if I do not catch him. Do not make the same mistake I did, take precautions! --Do not skimp on litter and do change it frequently. The CitiKitty is shallow with a small surface area and often times the poop/pee will be exposed due to lack of litter. If the litter smells like pee or poop, the cat will avoid it and find a cleaner spot to do business! This is not what you want. --Do not leave the toilet unflushed to save water (don't practice "if it's yellow let it mellow"). Check your toilet often (at least twice a day on top of regular human use) and make sure the water is always clean. I did not do this intentionally but left the cats by themselves overnight one weekend and came back to find poop in my bathtub. I found the kitties do not like going if another cat had already pooped in the toilet (dirty water = dirty litter). Cats are oddly like humans. I wouldn't want to poop on top of someone else's poop either. You need to be vigilant and flush, flush, flush! --Do not watch your cat use the toilet. The toilet is not enclosed so they can feel vulnerable when going. I found out that my one cat would always FACE the toilet cover while peeing, but whenever he sees me observing him, he would turned his back towards the toilet cover and tried to pee that way or worst stand up and leave while still peeing. This resulted getting pee everywhere because the angle was not right. Leave your cats alone to do their business. Both of my cats will sometimes look like they have to go but will circle the toilet and walk out of the bathroom if they see me following them. --One time my cat followed me into the bathroom when I had to go #2 (because they like to be locked in with you). 5 minutes later, he decided he wanted to go, too, meowed a bunch, and realizing what's happening, I scrambled to get up. Too late, he ended up pooping on the floor before I could put my pants back on. Additional info/tips: --You will have more success with female cats than male cats. This is because male cats stand up more while peeing. Female cats actually sit. Male cats can miss and sometimes get urine all over the place. Again, cats are oddly like humans. --If you feed cats on a schedule, your cats will learn to poop on a schedule, too. My cats have established a schedule where the male cat poops before noon and the female cat in the evening. This is good because you have an idea of when to check the toilet to flush it. --If you have to collect urine/feces samples for the vet, it is dead easy with the CitiKitty. If all goes well, you will likely have the extra insert that you did not even have to use. Put this on the used CitiKitty ring under all the toilet seats without litter. You cat will go like normal and the insert will catch the poop/pee. If you already used the insert, it might be helpful to get 2 CitiKitty sets. --With toilet training my cat, I was able to identify the problem of my cat peeing blood once from stress because the toilet water was pink!! You can't do this with litter. --My one cat will now pee on ANY toilet. I brought him to my relative's house once and he peed on 2 separate toilets (with different adult sized seats) without my prompting. This is in addition to the reintroduction of a litter box at the relative's house. He will still go #2 in the litter box. This means less pee clumps to scoop! If I move, I can just bring the Mayfair toilet seat and my cat will probably recognize it as the new toilet. The child seat is mainly to help the cats go #2 because they require more balancing doing #2 than #1. --I don't think this would work on an older cat. You will probably have to buy a step ladder because the toilet is still quite high and older cats can get joint pain. --Overall, I do not recommend this kit to train more than 2 cats per toilet because of the small area of the toilet and how fast it can get dirty if not flushed at all hours of the day. If you have multiple cats, train on multiple/all toilets with multiple kits in your house. Thanks for reading, hope this was helpful. Please feel free to comment if you have questions! Update 1: It is now July 2017. I've moved and now in a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment and now I have 3 cats. Unfortunately, my third cat was not trainable because he absolutely needs to dig in litter and there were many accidents on my bed. It was also too much cleaning to have 3 cats share 1 toilet and the toilet was almost always dirty so that probably contributed to the newest cat rebelling. I have since switched back to a litter box because 3 cats and 1 toilet is just too much. Interestingly enough, my one cat now prefers to pee in the toilet (even the toilet at my new apartment) so I still get some benefit of having to scoop fewer pee clumps. Update 2: I have now acquired a Litter Robot Open Air. I would still prefer litter free but the Litter Robot is a suitable replacement if you have more than 2 cats and only 1 toilet.