VIDEO: Toilet training your cat

I found this video report on the Wall Street Journal website about training cats to use the toilet.

Reporter Anne Marie Chaker describes the trial and tribulations of getting her kitty Mr Tibb's to 'go toilet'.

I can see why some people would want to toilet train their cat, if they are house cats and live in a flat or apartment, but I think Charlie would have none of it. He has excellent toilet habits.

When I first got him he knew exactly what to do over a litter tray. Now he's usually out all day, so he does his business while he's out and about on the prowl.

I do keep a litter tray on my bedroom though, just in case he needs to use it in the middle of the night, but the litter is still fresh - he hasn't used it once.

In fact, when he does need the toilet he wakes me up to be let out. I try to place him in the litter tray and he will just get out, shaking his feet and looking rather bewildered. I suppose when nature calls he wants to do it outside!

Cat food to fight plague of cane toads in Australia

Australia's poisonous plague of cane toads may finally have met its match - and it comes in a tin of cat food.

After years spent trying to batter, gas, run over and even freeze the toxic toads out of existence, scientists say just a dollop of Whiskas could stop the warty horde.

The cat food attracts Australia's carnivorous meat ants, which swarm over and munch on baby toads killing 70% of them.

University of Sydney professor Rick Shine told ABC: "It's not exactly rocket science. We went out and put out a little bit of cat food right beside the area where the baby toads were coming out of the ponds.

"The ants rapidly discovered the cat food and thought it tasted great.

"The worker ants then leave trails back to the nest encouraging other ants to come out there and forage in that area, and within a very short period of time we got lots of ants in the same area as the toads are."

Australia is beset by millions of cane toads after they were introduced from Hawaii in 1935 to control scarab beetles. The toads, which are prolific maters, eat anything and are incredibly tough, secrete poison that kills pets and wildlife and injure humans, prompting several unsuccessful campaigns to wipe them out.

"Even the ones that don't die immediately, die within a day or so of being attacked," Shine said, adding that native frogs were able to dodge the hungry ants.

"It's a simple, low-risk way of reducing the number of baby toads coming out of those ponds."

Tim Burton on Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire Cat

 I love Disney's Alice in Wonderland - the Cheshire Cat was my favourite character. But now oddball director Tim Burton known for The Nightmare Before Christmas and more recently Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is getting his claws into the Lewis Carroll classic. 

But Tim is not a cat-lover...but we won't hold that against him. Early on in the making of Alice in Wonderland director Tim Burton had very strong feelings about one of the characters - and it wasn't what you would call a good feeling. 

He told the Los Angeles Times: "The Cheshire Cat was a character I had a very specific image of and it's because I just have this thing about cats.

 "The Cheshire Cat taps into what you might call my hatred of cats."

Actor Stephen Fry handles the character in the film and Burton praised him for capturing the unsettling mind of a feline.

"Stephen Fry did a great job of getting that creepy quality. You know, this weird kind of floaty, too-focused, creepy - he did it great.

"He has this thing of getting up close and just sitting there and staring at you, you know, like a cat. It just kind of sits there."

Burton made a noise, not unlike a tabby struggling with a hairball.

"I have this thing with cats. And with Cheshire Cat it's a love-hate relationship. You can, uh, hear it in my voice can't you?"

*Alice in Wonderland is out in cinemas next month.

Italian TV chef axed after recommending cat stew on National Cat Day

An Italian chef has been axed after he said during his popular lunchtime cookery show that cat meat was one of the best animals he had ever tasted.

His remarks came after mentioning how, in the desperate conditions of post-war Italy, some people had taken to boiling stray mogs.

Beppe Bigazzi was explaining about traditions in Tuscany, where he comes from, and how cat meat was popular in the 30s and 40s.

As his co-presenter, Elisa Isoardi, looked on aghast, the 77-year-old told viewers that, far from being a last resort in times of near-famine, gatto in umido was "one of the great dishes of the Valdarno [in Tuscany]".

The secret, he disclosed, was to leave the cat in a fast-running stream for three days.

"What comes out is a delicacy", he enthused. "Many a time I've eaten its white meat." Isoardi, herself a cat owner, tried to interrupt, but to no avail.

"Cat in a thick sauce was "better than chicken, rabbit or pigeon", he said.

During a commercial break, the producers unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the celebrity gourmet that he should apologise when the programme resumed.

Soon afterwards, the switchboard was jammed with calls from appalled viewers.

Bigazzi was today on Italy's National Cat Day, quoted by the newspaper Corriere della Sera as saying he had been referring to events in the past, adding: "You can't judge things from 70 years ago".