Where Littering is Welcome and Appreciated

My male human is picking up some bad habits from the female. Mostly we like to ignore each other or hiss at each other from time to time. I love this male bonding thing (I am not a male, but I'm not sexist either). But now sometimes, he puts out a finger and makes those sounds my female human makes when she cuddles me. Like "stinky poos" (its not me- its the litter dude!). Whatever. It's like he is growing down. And let me tell you, at his size, there is so much more of this growing down to look forward to. Not.

Anyways, the first day I got here from the shelter, I couldn't figure where my toilet was, so at night I discreetly went in a corner in the room downstairs which is only ever used for sitting and watching that TV in. After that, my female human showed me where the litter was by putting it near me and allowing me to get in and sniff around. I was fine with using it after that. When I was younger I thought litter in kitty toilets is the ultimate wonder. You can go poos in it and next time you come around, it is clean! Wow. But then I caught my human puttering around my box which kind of clued me into how the magic trick happens.

The first litter my human got me was made with recycled paper. It is good for the environment which us kitties like. The litter doesn't look anything like recycled paper. It is pellets made of paper and it is flushable (gross and scary but necessary). However it didn't clump and the moisture would kinda be soaked under and remain at the bottom of the box so it got stinky pretty fast.

Then my human went and bought litter made with wheat. Now this one while it seems eco-friendly and flushable, raises the question of whether this is not a bad use of food material. It seems that, from what my human has been told by someone else, this is "not-food-grade" wheat, so we are ok with this. Now you may well ask, what does "not-food-grade" wheat mean and where does it come from? Umm, hmmm...yea,...it makes no sense to me either. This warrants further research. Not that I am all PETA (though my human is) and care for all kinds of other species like little baby seals, but having baby seals and birds and bunnies and humans does make life so much more interesting, you know. So I wouldn't really wanna poo on what could be feed for someone else. Same goes for corn litter. Plus, the wheat litter is pretty expensive compared to other litters and it does get stinky even with regular cleaning.

Then my male human's friend who has cats told him that he uses clay litter. And when my male human found out that Arm & Hammer made one with baking soda and all that, he went and bought two boxes of that. It was cheap compared to the litters before. But every time my human poured the litter into my box, she would be snuffling and coughing from the dust that the litter sent up. It clumped pretty hard but couldn't be flushed. So you had to have bags of used clay to walk to the garbage everyday. If they didn't walk it right away, I played with it cos the bags make interesting crinkly sounds. Now, I thought the clay is not the best option. It is not environmentally friendly (the clay and all those bags) and it certainly did not perform that great. Also, my human came to know that it is not the safest litter, so my human had to go back and return the other box.

I have left a link to an article talking about the dangers of clay litters to the right in my links section- kitty beware!

I have heard that some kitties are very picky about the litter they use and won't switch easily or at all. Now me - well, let me put it this way - if I was a catholic the pope might be putting me up for sainthood, that's how long-suffering and miraculously easy I am. Anyways, while my humans continued their experiments with litter, I have just been carrying on my life outside and leaving them to worry about such vital things as litter and what it is good for.

All was well till they went and switched to pine on me! The female human thought that it was the best option overall and filled my toilet with it. I'll tell you my toilet smells closest to a new car. Yucky. I'm NOT getting into that! And the stuff didn't feel right under my toes. She left it there to play a game of chicken with me. I decided not to pee or poo. This wasn't too hard as long as I got to go out to chase bunnies because I could always find a better toilet. But things became harder around the time that I hurt that bunny and she decided not to let me out as much. So I had to switch tactics. So I devised a new toilet- and you should know cats are nothing if not adaptable. In the living room behind the pot, next to the blinds and the curtain could be scraped over to hide stuff (on the right side of the picture basically). When my human found it she was not happy from all the muttering I could hear as she cleaned up. She went and put some catnip in my toilet to get me to go in. Talk about strange. Like as if I care if you put catnip in my toilet on top of stinky pine which kills what little sense of smell I have left. No thanks! I went under the curtain again. And then again. Let me tell you- You never play chicken with a cat and win! You just don't.

I have my wheat litter back because paper is not as good and clay is bad. Now I hear sounds about litter made with corn cob. Not to mention under my wheat is pine. It is not too bad together and when you go on the pine, it crumbles. But I refuse to go on it by itself. Yes, I know I said I'm not so particular about litter but a cat gets to change her mind.