I am a proud parent… Wel, cat-owner.

My kittycat, Kiara, inherited from a former housemate “P”, has always been somewhat recalcitrant regarding the use of the indoor toilet facilities, preferring on all counts to relieve herself against a wall.

This led to some unpleasantness in the past, as you can potentially imagine.

Since I’ve moved, the theory ran that this would continue unless drastic action was taken.

With the help of iMeri, a plan was concocted, which was this:

Ingredients

- Ten parts clay-based litter

- One part dirt

- One wet area that can be closed-off totally (bathroom for preference)

- One Weekend newspaper

- One Recalcitrant un-housetrained cat in a cat box

- Two rubber(ish) door wedges of any colour

Instructions

1. Add both ingredients and mix well in one litter tray.

2. Lay down plenty of newspaper in the room-of-choice.

3. Put cat food and water at the furthest point from the litter as possible with regard to the architectural layout.

4. Make sure the wedges are on-hand and enter room carrying cat box (inside which is said cat).

5. Place cat box down and wedge door shut.

6. Open Cat box and let cat out.

7. Give her a pat, let her know everything is okay and exit stage-left (wedging the door behind self).

8. Wait.

I let her out two days afterwards to see how she’d fare. On the whole she went okay until she did her usual trick in the corner of the loungeroom. After having her face rubbed in it and then dumped unceremoniously into the litter tray (then the door being closed after he afterwards) she appeared to quiet down.

And then yesterday I saw her do her business in the litter tray and she was lavished with praise.

Okay, so it’s not quite the joy a parent would have when their kid finally works-out how to use the toilet rather than nappies, but it’s fairly close, surely?

It’s a cool wet and dark day today, just the sort of day that it’s great to be at home.

However, I’m at work with a somewhat wet skirt front and things to do here. Life’s like that unfortunately.

Still, I had a good breakfast, thanks to a transfer of funds from my backup bank account, and hopefully am getting paid tomorrow (it is Thursday?).

It’s funny that when I was younger I used to hate it when it rained, mainly because I hated being stuck at home. Now I like my home, it’s quite nice actually to be able to just chill inside with the pained bleating of my cat in the background (as she’s locked in the bathroom as she (a) doesn’t get the idea of the cat litter, (b) because I’ve just moved house and has to remain in there for 2 weeks — apparently — so she becomes attuned to the house she’s now living in and doesn’t do a runner or get lost, and finally (c) because she has a habit of weeing against walls when she’s inside on her own because of the issue listed above in (a).).

Got that now?