Cat Genie: An Indoor Flushable Cat Toilet (Finally!)

You may have always dreamed of having your pet be able to hop onto a toilet, flush and have all that pet mess swished away.

In fact, enough people have dreamed it that flushing toilet trained cats - a la Meet the Parents - pop up periodically in movies.

Recently I was doing my usual addictive browsing on the Internet and found:

*drum roll please*

A flushable cat toilet.

I'm dead serious. You hook a sturdy plastic toilet shaped kitty litter box up to your sink or washers water supply. It has reusable granules that never have to be changed. Urine sinks through the kitty littler like granules to a reservoir which is emptied when the kitty toilet is flushed. An automatic pooper scooper fishes the kitty poop from the granules, dumps it into a reservoir and flushes that as well.

You don't have to worry about training Mr. Furry paws to flush. The owner flushes the unit once a day, which scoops, rinses, and agitates the litter, and then finally flushes all waste away.

The demo makes hooking it into the water supply look easy. You'll need a pipe wrench, and you'll probably have to turn off the water to the sink or washer hook up before starting. You take out a small joint in the pipe, or take off the handle. You insert a similar size T-shape pipe that allows water to go two ways, and screw the piece you took out back in. Then you attach the fitting from the genie to the extra opening in the T-shape pipe. The waste drain is either hooked over the toilet bowl, or into the washer drain.

The only caveat I have is that it uses a sani-solution to control odor and treat both the urine and feces reservoir. The site claims it to be safe and environmental. I'm always a skeptic until I get a look at the ingredients or do further research. This product is so new there is not a lot of info on the sani-solution. However, if you're the type to make your toilet water look blue, or use sani-flush systems of any type in you're own bowl or tank, you probably have nothing to worry about.

The retail price is a one time buy of a couple hundred dollars. The exact price depends on which package you buy. (For example are you going to splurge on a dome top for Whiskers or just put up with looking at the kitty litter?) Almost all packages throw in granules and sanitation solution. A cartridge costs between $12-$15 US dollars. How often you replace it depends on how many kitties you have using your new toilet!

If you're interested in knowing more, just google:

CatGenie

Or you can simply visit www.catgenie.com

Alternatives to this are traditional scoopable cat litter, teaching our cat to go outside, or training the kitty to actually use the potty--meaning YOUR potty.

I currently don't have a cat to try this fascinating solution on, but would love to have comments from owners regarding how it works out, including any pros, cons or observations.