Toilet Training Your Cat is a Terrible Idea

July 11, 2016true storycats in hoodies, clothing your cat, Jackson Galaxy, toilet training a cat, training your cat to walk on a leash, why you shouldn't toilet train your catMarion

This brilliant video originally posted on Facebook by the Cat Adoption Foundation has gone viral. Why? How shall I put this? If you see only one cat video this year, this is the one you must watch! Seriously, I don’t want to spoil it. I’ll wait till you come back.

It proves that cats are bright enough to learn to use the toilet, and it shows why we shouldn’t teach them to use it. Some people claim their cats copied this behavior with no pressure from their humans. Live and let live if that’s the case. It’s between them and their cat, but in my (informed) opinion they should keep the litter pan handy in case things go wrong.

After viewing the video, I wondered how often cats wind up stuffing the bowl with paper and or whatever else is handy in a desperate attempt to bury the evidence? I never got a clear answer but in my web travels I came across a video of Jackson Galaxy ranting (or waffling) about the evils of toilet training. I like Galaxy, but he wasn’t very specific as to the reasons why toilet training is just wrong. He talked about the beauty of the “raw” cat and how we must respect it, but was vague on the details, and given all we do to our kitties — like neuter them for starters, keep them indoors, force them to live with other cats they may not like and even dogs, etc. — it’s hard to make the case that toilets is where should draw the line. Here’s that video:

As you can see, he also rants (or waffles) about non-consensual cat cosplay. I wonder what he’d think of Walking Walter’s super cute hoody?

Would he grant me an exception because I only make him wear it on our leash walks because it’s also a harness? Oh yeah, Galaxy is totally okay with walking your cat on a leash and doesn’t think that takes away from your kitty’s wildness.

So in answer to those who aren’t convinced yet, I’m providing some solid reasons (no pun intended) why training your cat to use a toilet is all kinds of wrong:

(1) Domestic cats have evolved as both hunters and pray. Therefore hiding their crap by burying it is a very specific survival strategy that evolved over time. Leaving smelly piss and crap in a toilet feels wrong to a cat, and will never feel right. Watch any video of a cat on a toilet. They will try to bury it. Therefore, every trip to the toilet involves stress and frustration. Stressing out a cat is likely to result in various physical and behavioral issues; plus it’s not nice. And no they aren’t bright enough to also learn to flush. And no an automatic flusher wouldn’t help because if you get fell he/she would be traumatized if not injured.(2) Toilet seats are not made for cats — especially very young cats or older ones that might have mobility issues. A cat can fall in and given cats’ aversion to both water and filth, that would be very traumatic for a cat. This could also lead to real problems if a cat has gotten the message that the toilet is the only acceptable place to go. (3) Half the time human males don’t remember to put the seat down making it even harder. (4) Sooner or later someone in the cat’s designated bathroom will close the seat, which may lead to a nasty surprise left in your sink or bathtub. (5) Your cat might not want to “wait” while you or someone else is using their spot. (6) Sometimes your cat may need to go to the vet or some other places where the toilet thing isn’t going to happen. He/she may be confused about what he or she is supposed to do. If they go back to doing what comes naturally, they’ll need to retrained again. (7) Given that cats won’t flush, do you really want smelly cat crap in your toilet until you get around to flushing it. (8) Getting multiple cats to use the same toilet could be an issue. (9) Is this a toilet that a human will sometimes be using? Do you really want to share it with a cat? (10) If it is a toilet that humans will use, chances are there’s going to be toilet paper. See the video linked at the beginning of this post. From a cat’s point of view, stuffing the toilet with paper is a very logical thing to do. Do you really want to clean up a dirty toilet bowl stuffed with toilet paper by your cat?

I could probably think up a few more reasons, but what it comes down to is that training your cat to use the toilet is dumb. Feel free to comment and discuss amongst yourselves.

(Nothing says: “I liked this post and found it useful” like checking out the author’s work on Amazon.)

BETTER CALL SAUL: His Brother’s Keeper? (Finale Speculation Special)

April 18, 2016Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review BlogMarion

Less than twenty-four hours till the season two finale of Better Call Saul! Last week the internet exploded when an astute fan with too much time on her hands, unscrambled the first letter of each season two episode title to discover the Tiffany Easter egg within. As we all now know (unless we’ve been unplugged for a week) the letters spell, “FRINGS BACK.” We’ll forgive the writers for leaving out the apostrophe (just this once).

But whether or not our favorite super-villain is back, there are still plenty of questions that need answers: Has Kim finally had enough? Is Chuck going to live? And when exactly will Jimmy emerge as criminal lawyer and lord of the underworld, Saul Goodman? You’ll get some real answers tonight, but in the mean time, read my purely speculative thoughts over at Happy Nice Time People, and please feel free to comment with your own theories and ideas!

THE CATCH: Con Cons Cop, TV Review

April 3, 2016Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review BlogThe Catch, The Catch 70s style, The Catch Thomas CrownMarion

Shondaland brings us yet another new series – or in this case a mid-season replacement, meaning the network was maybe a little skittish, which turns out they had a right to be.

Alice Vaughn is a gorgeous private investigator working for corporations and rich folks. She’s engaged to Mr. Perfect, Christopher Hall, a high finance type, whom she meets not-so-cute when he comes to her firm to do some bidness, but then tells her he’s going elsewhere because he claims he’s already too interested in her. They’re engaged within five seconds, which doesn’t set off her spidey-sense, but in real life wouldn’t she have done some serious background checking? Especially given that he appears to have no friends, and all his relatives are conveniently dead? And he has that strange habit of ducking his head whenever anyone tries to snap his photo? And given that’s she’s a pro and all? Wouldn’t she, you know, google him, maybe? Just to see what turn up? (To read the rest of this fascinating review, head over to Happy Nice Time People where you can follow all my snarky television recaps and reviews.)

She’s Back

April 1, 2016true storyMarion

So I haven’t posted in forever. Some of this may have been owing to a crisis in confidence, the belief that I have no audience so what’s the point in actually putting words down even virtually? Yeah, I know, shouldn’t I be past all that by now? Something happened, which shook me, the influence of one of those toxic individuals we all come across, te insidious kind who may actually believe s/he is being helpful. Fortunately, there may be a story in there, and when I’m ready to tell it, you’ll be the first to know.

Plus there are those time constraints we’re all under, other projects, paid work, etc.

However, anyone who’s ever come here and found anything useful they’ve liked could probably look around and find more from old posts. Plus, if you want to encourage me, commenting here, increases in my book sales, etc etc will revive me like applause brought back Tinkerbell.

You can also keep up with snarky television recaps and other writing about television over at Happy Nice Time People — where they actually pay me sort of.

I’m also up for suggestions as to posts. Seriously, if there’s something you’d like to see me write about, just let me know.

Coming Attractions: The Man in the High Castle (Preview)

October 29, 2015Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review BlogMarion

The best (Philip K Dick) novel of all time, The Man in the High Castle will be coming to your favored viewing device on November 20, 2015 – just in time for Thanksgiving, via Amazon. So while your drunk uncle and Trump supporting uncle (who may or may not be the same person) and other assorted relatives are watching the football, you can lean back, plug in your headphones and see the greatest alternative timeline story ever told, on your fully charged phone. That is, if you have access to Amazon Prime. So if you haven’t done the trial membership yet, wait for it.

But here’s the bestest news of all – even if you’re a shlub who blew your Prime trial on Bosch, and you don’t have a significant other or family member willing to trust you with his or her Amazon password, you can watch the pilot episode FREE now (and if you do have Prime you can watch the second episode too).

What is The Man in the High Castle and why would you want to watch it? The Man in the High Castle is the television adaptation of a novel by Philip K. Dick – the man whose books have been the basis for Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, The Adjustment Bureau and more. It’s set in a world where FDR is assassinated in 1933, the US never gets over the depression, Kirk never lets Edith Keeler die, and we lose World War II. The post-war US is divided by Japan and Germany. Japan controls the West Coast, the Germans have the East Coast and most of the rest. The Rockies form a buffer zone. The novel takes place in 1962. There’s a novel within the novel called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which offers an alternate history – not ours – but closer to it. In that version, Germany and Japan are defeated, but Russia barely makes it through. The US and Great Britain emerge as the world’s two competing super powers.

In 2010, the BBC announced a planned four-part adaptation, with Ridley Scott as Executive Producer. Five years later with Scott still at the helm and no BBC involvement, it’s here. Why haven’t there been previous feature films? Possibly because the tone of the novel is so dark and humorless, and the ending doesn’t feel like one. Dick planned on writing a sequel. A couple of chapters exist, but he abandoned the project finding it too unbearable to read more about nazis and try to get into their heads.

Amazon refers to “season one” availability, so it’s unclear whether or not they’ll be following the book’s storyline, or going past it to create a broader series about life under occupation or giving us the sequel Dick never finished. The pilot follows the book’s plot with some variations, but not enough so far to cause this fan to go ballistic.

The biggest difference so far is that in the adaptation, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is a film, not a novel. It looks like an authentic World War II era newsreel. Some people believe it is, and that belief causes the nazis to make even watching it an act of treason punishable by death. Others believe it is merely anti-fascist fiction. In both the novel and the series, the actual man in the high castle is the creator of the work. Why a newsreel rather than a novel? Maybe it’s simply a matter of one being more visual than another. We can experience a film within a film and watch it with the characters, a book within a film is tougher.

The pilot, like the book, is uncompromising in its bleakness, and then in episode two the darkness is magnified. Imagine if you will, living in a world that totally sucks and Jon Stewart was never born because his grandparents were wiped out. Amazon seems to be attempting irony in one of its promos – which doesn’t jibe with the tone of the pilot. They use the song Edelweiss from The Sound of Music over the opening credit sequence, but this is not satire, so don’t expect The Confederate States of America. But if you are a sucker for parallel/alternative realities, this is the mother of them all.

Enjoy (if that’s the right word) this official promo:

(This piece will appear soon on Happy Nice Time People where you can see more of my writing about television. If you can’t get enough of alternate timelines, you might want to check out this little novella. And remember, nothing says thank-you for offering all this free stuff with no intrusive advertising like buying one of my cheap books and maybe even writing a glowing review.)