If you value your quality of life, don’t ever presume to tell a cat what to do. Don’t even make suggestions. It will blow up in your face. Or somewhere equally inconvenient.
In my on-going quest to provide the best possible living conditions for my dearly beloved cats, I offered them an alternative to The World’s Best Litter.
As previously mentioned.
Dr Elsey’s is wonderful, but my “shovellers” kicked it out of the box, and on hard wood floors, it was a crunchy, slidey mess that I eventually could no longer tolerate.
Grant hadn’t approved of the experiment, in the first place, so he cheered.
Previously, we used to simply place paper towel in a couple of boxes, but there were problems with that:
Paper towel is now too scarce for such a casual use.
But mainly, the cats weren’t going back to that.
Nooo. They wanted the white “sandy” stuff back.
And to make their point, they began to pee in my bathroom.
And poop there too, next to the toilet, not in.
I placed a box of Fresh Step “crystals” next to the toilet.
The refined Ms Willow, the acrocat, balances on the edge of a litter box, so as not to soil her pretty little feet.
I like to think she was not being bloody-minded when she perched on the far edge of the aforementioned litter box, the edge against, though not flush with the wall. But it must have been some contortion….
Puddle under the box, around the base of the toilet, etc.
How is it that one discovers these things at the end of a day, just as you are ready to fall, freshly showered, into your bed?
No doubt one of the rules of cat-ownership.
What am I saying? “Ownership?” Don’t let them know that I even suggested such a thing. You do not own a cat. At best you are their appointed slave.
I draped more plastic sheeting, indecorously, around the bathroom litter box, which suddenly became the box of choice. It had been an extra box, for use by timid Patches when she is unable to reach any of the other 16 or more.
Now they all wanted to use it.
10 girl cats, all using the same soppy little box.
“Got to pee in Mum’s bathroom”.
WHY?????
Pretty soon I located an overflow…in the corner behind the bathroom door. OMG.
Fine.
Now I have another box behind the damn door.
This one contains newspaper, as suggested by Grant.
24 hours later, no one has deigned to use it.
The box isn’t wedge-shaped, but the corner is dry.
Is there a puddle somewhere else?
Later on today, I am going to dispose of the Fresh Step and substitute one of the other choices, delivered from Chewy.com.
Fresh Step did not involve as much sweeping up, but let the experiment continue…
Colin and Toby say “a box is a box, what’s the fuss?”
Oh my! As always you have captured the dilemma perfectly and who is to say that your kitties have not deliberatly conspired to provide you with some hilarious (to us at least) behaviors to write about. It’s a good thing we love them so much and more or less forgive them for their quirky behavior.
On another note, you have mentioned “their blog” I am not tech savy so could you tell me how to access their blog, please.
I love your!
Hmm…if they have their own blog they must be playing with my computer at night. They often walk on my keyboard but as yet I haven’t seen them type anything coherent!
OK Thank you. I was misinterpreting your comments.
Of course Yeti once wrote her story…it was called the 37th incarnation. So there’s always a possibility someone else might take to writing…
If indeed the cats do have a blog, I would LOVE to hear their side of the story, lol.
We’ll see about that.
Cats… We are their servants. So nice pictures of your cat, made me smile 🙂