Potty-Training Your Cat

You can do it yourself, with household items.

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Platform

The platform shown above was our prototype and working model for years. It was made from a scrap of old wood paneling I found in my dad's garage. The back (less slippery) side is face-up. I had cut a strip of non-skid rubber into three and placed them around the inside edge. You can see that two of these still remain. They don't seem to be necessary, though. You can also see the repairs and reinforcements of the arms. These resulted from us and friends accidentally lifting the platform along with the seat, rather than sliding it forward to remove it. Even with repairs, the platform worked fine. The instructions below will produce one that is a little more durable, like the one pictured below.

This platform was made from some scrap tub-surround material. Water-proof paneling would also work and can be gotten from most home-improvement stores. The part on the side is just a remnant of the original scap. We left it there b/c it allows the platform to rest on it's end when we remove it for human use. This one-piece design makes it very durable and easy to clean.

Purposes

The platform serves a few puroses. It provides kitty with a little more surface to stand on. You probably already know that cats can be surprisingly stable on narrow surfaces. Still, this gives them a little extra traction, in case your seat is a littele slippery. The platform is desigened to be slid back and forth, to vary the size of the opening. I also wanted it to: have no moving parts, be easy to remove, allow the original seat surface to still be exposed (in case the platform is accidently left off, or if we wanted to end up with kitty needing no devices), and be easy to clean.

Make your own with a custom template.

It is surprisingly simple to custom make a platform that will fit your toilet. You will need a saw or something to cut out the final product (jigsaw works best). If you don't want to use treated wood, a hard piece of plastic might work. It is imporant that it be thin enough to fit between the seat and rim without binding the seat hinges when the seat is put down. My paneling material was durable enough at about 1/8" thick. The space between my seat and rim is almost 1/4". I wouldn't go much more than 1/8" thick, because you might still want to fit the hanger for the retractable litterbowl device between there. It will make little difference that the front seat pads will rest on the top of the platform and slightly raise the seat front.
You could trace your cutting lines directly on your final material, but I'd suggest making a traceable template that can be easily modified if the fit is not perfect. For the prototype, I just used the top of a clothing gift box (tore open to make flat) for template material. Here I demonstrate by making a template out of some old poster board I had..

The first step is to mark the outsides of your seat hinges and cut into your template on these marks (maybe 4 inches in/long). Fold back the flap you just created. Make sure your cut is on the outside of the base of the hinge (where the hinge attaches to the rim).

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