installing Cat Genie

So, after the Cat Genie arrives I am reminded of the rusted / frozen water connection in my laundry room that kept them from changing the hose when I had my washing machine installed. It also turns out that my drain pipe for the washing machine wouldn't fit both the washing machine drain hose and the Cat Genie drain hose. "crap."

The other issue is that the entire laundry room needed a thorough cleaning as Cosmo and some other cats have taken it upon themselves to urinate on the laundry room floor. I now keep sheets down to absorb any grossness, but initially it ran under the washer / dryer and that needed to be cleaned after some things were moved out of the room to make space.

On Saturday I took to assembling the Cat Genie, had some issues with the bowl turning and needed to do some investigation to figure that out. Overall though the installation process was pretty simple...but a better picture of the bottom of the bowl and where that white grid thing-a-ma-bob that helps it turn resides wouldn't hurt anyone.

In order to remove the rusted hose I needed to purchase a hack saw and borrow some WD40 from my sister (I have some in the garage somewhere but with the other house construction it's pretty hard to get in the garage to find anything). Following some instructions I found on the Internet I hack sawed the hose connector at an angle and used needle nosed pliers to peel back the edge. Not easy, but manageable.
The WD40 was essential at this point. The peeled edge made it possible for the WD40 to ooze into the grooves and eventually made it possible for me to unscrew the hose. You can see the pool of rust and the metal dust from the hack saw in this picture.

I cleaned up the rusty edge and the metal dust and then replaced the cold water hose with the new one and hooked up the T connector Cat Genie supplies for such things. I also needed to purchase a new drain hose for my washing machine. (Getting frustrated and creative on Saturday night I bore a hole in the drain hose I had. Just the goose neck connector, but it turns out I was unable to buy this on its own.) Luckily the new hose had a slightly smaller goose neck hose.

By chipping away at the edge of the opening with a screwdriver and hammer (think chisel here) I was able to get the opening a bit larger (the actual drain pipe below was larger and would accommodate both hoses) so that both hoses would actually go through the opening of the fancy wall insert.

So here you can see the final product, cold water is hooked up using the fancy T connector. That's the water input hose for the Cat Genie with the plastic white connector sticking out of the top. In the middle you can see the gray washing machine drain hose and the white Cat Genie drain hose going into the same drain pipe in the laundry room.

Now the fun part. At least for some of the kitties. The younger ones anyway. I hear one of my sisters cats is afraid of the Cat Genie.

Dexter finds the Cat Genie fascinating. He also likes to watch it when it's running. And dip his dainty paw in the water. I know he's peed in there a few times, but my sister tells me no pooping yet. It also seems that another cat peed in there sometime today. Go kitties! Let's use the expensive self cleaning toilet!!

My sister suggested training Dexter to flush the toilet but I suspect that could be an expensive enterprise as he might just flush it to watch it run. Not only that, but the cycle is around 30 minutes total. 3 washes and then a drying cycle so I would sure hate for it to be running for Dexter's amusement when another cat wanted to use it. I suspect the others would be afraid of the noise and motion of the cycle. Such interests are typically exclusive to kittens.

He also seems to like water. This is something that has come to my sister's attention and also to mine. He has the same tendency that some cats do to drop things into the water dish. He also was fairly fascinated with the Jacuzzi tub that my parents have put into their hall bathroom. At any given time you could walk by that door and a speedy orange kitten would come shooting out over the edge and down the hall in an ever so guilty sort of way.

Last night I took a short video of Dexter enjoying the game that is his new potty:



He's pretty darn cute. But I might just be a bit biased here. Judge for yourself.