Nary a day begins without cat vomit. It’s particularly energizing when you hop out of bed right into a slimy hairball. If it was the product of a single cat, it would be cause to worry, but with 11, it’s a daily event. It goes with the territory.
Like scooping their deposits.
Take a note of the new box.
Right. That’s not an actual litter box.
It’s a tub with a hole cut out.
Why is this necessary?
It’s not her fault.
She does no wrong!
My child.
Willow is very fussy about certain things.
Like peeing.
With deference to her privacy, I’ve not taken a photograph of her performing this particular function.
After all, I wouldn’t want pictures posted of myself peeing in the woods, for example.
Willow perches on the edge of the box to do her thing, while balancing precariously.
Some months ago I determined to find the perfect litter.
Only it’s not yet been invented.
For many weeks I used a crystal-type in some of the boxes. The cats loved it. Grant refused to deal with it.
The new high-backed boxes became a problem.
Because crystal litter is very light and the boxes were designed by an idiot, or perhaps by someone who never saw a cat balance, the way Willow does. They have a narrow base. (Why???)
Willow attempted to perch, as usual , only to have the box tip up, spilling cat and litter onto the floor.
So I had to find wedges, which worked for a while….
But I came to realize that while it didn’t seem to affect the cats, the dust which rose when I poured in fresh crystals, or even when I scooped the box, was making me cough. A lot.
Can’t be good. To his credit Grant did not gloat. He was right. That stuff is toxic.
No matter what the manufacturers claim.
Forced to revert. But now, my little kitties have known something they prefer.
“Hey! Where’s our white litter?”
“We’re not peeing in that brown stuff!”
“That’s only for pooping!”
“So we’re going to pee on the floor!”
You can imagine what I said about that!
It wasn’t just Willow. Several of the girls are fussy.
My feeling is that Grant puts too much litter in the boxes and the cats don’t like the feel of it . OK for digging, but not for more delicate functions. It sticks to their fur, or something. Who knows.
This is one of those discussions Grant and I cannot have. He’s right and we’re not talking about it. Period.
Now years ago, I had a couple of problem kitties.
We worked out that if we put paper towel in a box that they would condescend to pee on that.
Not ideal, but needs must. So I obtained quantities of re-cycled, environmentally responsible paper towels.
And lined several boxes.
Now we were back to the tipping problem, and Willow’s solution to that was to stand right at the front and squirt high. Right over the top of the highest-sided box.
The wedges I had used, for the crystal litter, had been appropriated! You guessed it, by Grant. Just because they are door stops, I don’t see why that’s what they need to be used for! I should have made him get more, but they weren’t all that efficient, so I opted for a different solution…
I re-cycled an empty kibble bag to raise the height.
The funny thing is, I don’t think Grant has even noticed.
He doesn’t deal with the “paper” boxes.
His solution was to cut a hole in a huge old tub,
as in the picture above.
It works too, but cutting the hole was tedious, apparently, and those tubs are expensive. (For this purpose anyway)
So for the time being, they don’t look pretty, but this is what we are going with.
Sometimes dealing with cat boxes seems like an all-day event.
They will do what they want, when they want, where they want. You know it’s true!
Yes, they will!
I love that solution of using the big tub. I wish I had thought of that during the last part of Furby’s life when he got so crazy about where he would do his business. He decided that the best place was in the hallway, right in front of the furnace register. I got the highest sided box that I could find and he would stand and spray directly over the side of the box and INTO the air register. Almost a year of this behavior caused the grate to completely rust out and it had to be replaced. Not an easy task to find one that would fit. I hope Willow will use this box, even though she can’t perch on the side.
It worked but now no-one seems to use it. No accidents lately though. Cats!