Rebecca Rescate’s Citi Kitty cat toilet training set is doing well. With over $1.4 million in sales though her website alone, you could say she’s doing very well.
But Rescate thinks she can do better, so she hit the set of ABC’s Shark Tank seeking help from the investors. In the end, she agreed to sell 20% of her company to infomercial mogul Kevin Harrington in exchange for $100,000.
A cat toilet training seat is nothing new. For instance, here’s a 1972 patent for a “Toilet Training Assembly For Cats,” issued to one Michael McGee:
I claim:
1. A support for a cat that may be removably mounted on the bowl of a toilet commode which includes:
a. a cover of generally oval shape that has a slightly larger transverse cross section than that of the bowl on which it is to be mounted, said cover having an opening formed at substantially the center thereof;
b. an endless inverted channel-shaped member of generally oval shape that can be filled with litter, said member being disposed below said opening in said cover and extending inwardly therefrom, said member secured to said cover, and said channelshaped member defining a downwardly extending opening that is in communication with the interior of said bowl when said cover rests on the open edge portion thereof; and
c. means for removably securing said cover in a fixed position on said upper edge portion of said bowl to serve as a support for a cat when said cover is mounted on said bowl.
2. A support as defined in claim 1 in which said means is a flange that extends downwardly from said cover and removably engages the upper exterior portion of said bowl.
Despite McGee’s now expired patent, there are a plethora of cat toilet training inventions and designs listed at the patent office. I was a bit surprised to learn that Rescate doesn’t seem to have even a design patent for her CitiKitty product, though there do seem to be a few nearly identical competitors out there, e.g. the Litter Kwitter.
She does have a trademark for the term CITIKITTY when used in conjunction with “kits consisting primarily of plastic toilet training seats and training manuals for use in the toilet training of cats.”
CitiKitty is available at Amazon.
