As I've mentioned before, we are in the process of toilet training our new ship's cat Rosie.

Now I don't mean training her to use a litter box -- she had that down from the day we picked her up. Which, is a surprise because you wonder why street cats take to litter boxes right away -- and even more puzzling is that they are picky about their litter, just like the spoiled pets in the United States that learn from television ads (yes, they're watching ) that there's a million different kinds of litter to chose from and if they are finicky enough they can get their people buying several different kinds until they find one that they really like. Who knew a street cat would already be fussy? But she was. The first night we brought her home we were scrambling to get things all set on the boat for her, because when we set out to dinner that night we didn't plan on bringing home a new pet. Luckily, we had some kitty food on board from when we were helping a mother cat take care of her brood in a storage shed at the marina in La Paz. As for litter, we happened to have a multi-purpose tub that was just right for a littler box so we filled it with some sand thinking that should work just fine -- but we were wrong. Little Rosie was happy as a clam that first night on the boat, but she wouldn't use the littler box. She didn't go anywhere else, either, she just didn't go. So just like when you bring a new baby home, we didn't get much sleep that first night keeping an eye on her.

The next morning we walked down to the local vet and purchased some kitty litter. As soon as we mixed a bit of that litter in with the sand, Rosie took to it and did her business! With the first important hurtle of box training taken care of, the slow the process of toilet training began.

We've actually toilet trained a cat before,very successfully. For those of you that have read Terry's book, Adventures Aboard Rick's Place, you know Rick has a toilet trained cat aboard his boat. That cat, like all of the character's in the book is a composite, with a name taken from one source and characteristics from others. In the book, Jack is the toilet trained cat, but in reality it was our cat Cali that we moved aboard our boat Cetus with when she was a very young kitten, and we'd toilet trained her just before that move.

The first step in the process is to put the cat's litter box in the bathroom, so they get used to going into that room. Next you start slowly raising the height of the litter box, so they get used to having to jump up to use it. Then, when that all seems to be going well with no stress on the cat (and if you try to move too quickly they will be stressed and start holding it in and showing their displeasure) you actually turn the toilet into the litter box.

When we trained Cali, I used a plastic mold specially made for a toilet seat and sold in pet stores under the name of Kitty Whiz, and we've taken that idea and adapted some plastic lids we had on board to accomplish the same thing aboard Cetus. So Rosie has been using the head turned litter box for several weeks now and we've actually proceeded on to the next phase (remember you must go slowly...) cutting holes in the center of the litter box exposing the toilet below. You start with a very small hole -- about 2 inches in diameter. Then you very gradually enlarge the hole (waiting a few days to a week between changes). This makes the cat move from the center of their "box" until they are actually just perching on the toilet seat and voila the toilet is no longer a litter box but they use it just the same.

This whole process works best if you have more than one toilet, so the cat can be trained on one while the rest of the family has easy use of the other, but alas, aboard Cetus we have just one head. But we started the process at the marina where we had use of shore facilities and it really isn't too much trouble to lift the tray off the toilet if we need to use it. It's a small sacrifice for what we know to be a great reward to have a toilet trained cat with no litter box needed aboard a small boat.