Cat Litter Saga Part 3

I've been through clay litter, pine pellets, corn litter, walnut litter, and pine shaving litter.

They have all failed me.

Now I'm on this grass seed business.

I walked into the Petco the other day, and when the employee asked me if he could help me with something, I asked, "Do you have any cat litter that is not one hundred percent crap?"

In retrospect, I may have come off sounding a bit rude, but I was frustrated and fed up with the shit I've been shoveling.

Both the real shit and the shit it's buried in.

The guy blinked a bit. So I asked him if he had any recommendations on cat litter.

By then he was looking a bit uncomfortable and a little like a trapped rabbit, but he took me over to the cat litter aisle and pointed out all the different options.

I went through each of them, airing my complaints. First I tried The World's Best Cat Litter. It made my house smell like a feed store. Then I tried the walnut stuff. Boy, was that a mess. Then the pine shavings. Wasn't so much a mess as it does not deliver what it says on the package (but then neither does the World's Best Cat Litter). The package says odor control, 99.9% dust free, clumping litter.

It says that on all of these litters.

What a crock.

The corn stuff clumps and is easily scoopable (and also flushable), but it isn't 99.9% dust free. The dust found itself settling everywhere which is probably why my house smelled like a feed store. The walnut stuff also settled everywhere, and this stuff was dark so everything ended up looking dirty all the time. The pine stuff was light and fluffy and didn't track around near as much as the other stuff, but it didn't clump. The package said clumpable. It didn't clump for shit. It also didn't clump shit. I'd try to scoop up the "clump" of pee in the box and it would disintegrate, scattering all over the litter box and the rest of the clean litter. I was changing and throwing out litter every other day and boy does that get expensive.

Litter is expensive anyway.

The poor Petco employee was friendly, but no help, stating that he didn't really know much about cat litter and it sounded like I'd already tried plenty of them with no luck. So I grabbed the bag of stuff I haven't tried yet. It's made of grass or grass seed or whatever, so far, doesn't smell, doesn't leave dust, and clumps very well (almost to the point of cement). The only problem is that it's a mess. Percy flings it from the box like he's digging to China, and I find it all the way on the other side of the room. He tracks it up the steps and I even found some in the bathroom which is two floors up from the litter boxes.

There are a couple more litters I haven't tried yet. There's some kind of absorbent crystal stuff that looks like it might be too sharp on kitty's paws. I already have issues with litter box aversion so I don't need to convince them they never want to go near the boxes again. There is, of course, clay litter, which is my absolute last resort (but I will go to the Arm and Hammer stuff out of desperation). There's also a wheat based litter, and I thought, "How stupid." When you think about it, the corn stuff is stupid too. Cats shouldn't be fed grains, so a smart cat owner will eliminate grain based foods. Most commercial cat and dog foods are filled with corn or grain fillers, and are actually responsible for weight gain and health problems. I feed my pets (well, except Percy who eats ID and I was horrified to read the first ingredient is corn - vets should know better) a high quality, limited ingredient diet that is mostly protein and no grains. Why the hell would I give my cats a cat litter made of grains which they dig around in and then lick off their paws?

Duh.

Percy already has tummy issues. Even the ID isn't doing him much good. I thought about switching him to Blue Buffalo, though they've come under the gun before for false advertising.

I'm getting dangerously close to just throwing the cats a raw chicken and saying, "Here, have at it."

Maybe they'd all be happier as mousers.

I try my best with their diets (and Willow won't touch anything else but the food I give her now), but I'm not going to make issues worse with their cat litter.

The grass stuff so far will suffice. Every morning there's a scattering of it all over the floor around the litter boxes, and I step in it (and that's just ooky, stepping on scattered litter with bare feet - ICK), but at least it clumps and is easy to clean. And it doesn't smell. It also diminishes the smell of poop.

All this bathroom behavior is just an ongoing drama. After months of using the litter box, Willow once again decided to pee elsewhere, and this time, the little bitch peed on the carpeted step right next to the water bowl. She's been pretty obsessive every morning about jumping into the bathtub after I shower to frantically lap up the water in the drain and I couldn't figure out what her issue was.

I found the pee spot the other day because I happened to sniff it. So I drenched it in carpet cleaner and vinegar and moved the water bowl.

Willow is now back to drinking out of the water bowl.

Are you kidding me? You pee next to the bowl and then you can't drink out of it? Well, don't pee next to the bowl, stupid! I know cats don't like to drink or eat where they eliminate, but if she's THAT stupid, then I just don't know anymore. The bowl has been there for years. She knows that.

So she's back in her cage at night.

My nights are now spent playing musical cats. Willow sacks out on the kitty tower downstairs while I watch TV, and Puckett has been Bogarting the dog bed. Tess has been banned from the bedroom at night because she's started peeing on the floor and refuses to go out in the backyard after dark. I'll let her our front now, and she pees and has no issue (maybe I have a ghost or an evil spirit in the backyard, who knows). But she's still old and has lost control of her bladder, so I put a gate up to keep her out of the bedroom at night. This leaves one soft spot for her to sleep, the dog bed. Of course she can't sleep there because Puckett's considerable bulk is taking it up.

Dear God. So here's the night: Remove Willow from the kitty tower and move her to the cage, remove Puckett from the dog bed and put her on my bed, put up the gate to lock the dog out and put her on her bed, and Percy is left to fend for himself .

My morning and evening rituals are exhausting.

I'm ready for more wine and truffles.

Percy believes the dog toys all belong to him. Of course the cat toys all belong to him, too...