This One's for the Cats

Doodah: Always uses her litter box










Minnie: Rarely uses her litter box










Chocolate: Does disgusting things
when he has access to litter boxes





There are some interesting nuggets of information in an article titled Digging Deep Into the Cat Litter Question. The quick summary is:

• Most all problems of cats not using their litter boxes are fixable. Mostly it's us that needs the fixing, because we don't clean the box often enough or keep trying new products that are more geared to our needs (read: scents) than theirs (cats don't like scents).

• When we don't keep the box clean, it's akin to us walking into a grody porta-john. To quote,

  Think about how you feel when you go into a porta-john that's overdue for service on a hot day, after being used by too many partygoers, all of them drunk, and you'll get an idea of how cats feel about using soiled, smelly litter boxes. Have some compassion for these animals, whose sense of smell is much more acute than ours, and for whom godliness comes a very distant second to cleanliness.

• For those of us who are looking for "green" solutions, there's a variety of litters that are available that are easy on the earth - wheat, corn cobs, orange peels, pine shavings, and old newspapers are a couple mentioned in the article.
• Something very important to keep in mind: even though litters will be advertised as "flushable", for those of us in California, flushing clumpable litters is suspected of causing toxoplasmosis in sea otters off our coast. We need to put into a sealed bag in the garbage can, not put down the sewer lines.
  
• If you are introducing new litter to your cat, it's suggested to try mixing the old litter with the new, gradually increasing the new over a period of a week or two. This helps them adjust to the change, which is something they don't like as a matter of course.
• There's a great quote to remember:

  We're either not cleaning the litter box often enough, using a cat litter our cats don't like, the litter box is not in a place the cat feels safe using it, or we have too many cats and not enough litter boxes. In other words, yes, your cat is right: It's all your fault.

Ugh, I hate it when Minnie is right. :)