#179 - Cat Naps & Coffee confidently confer: The Twelve Days of Smokemas Day 9 | Changing the Cats Litter Box

Well hey hi hello!

It's going to be a short one today and mostly for any cat owners because, well, I just did a regularly scheduled thing of mine that I only know to do because of the weird jobs I had in my 20s so I'm sharing it again in hopes of helping people who love their cats improve their quality of life/health.

Okay ready?

If you have a plastic litterbox, and it's older than six months, it's time to fully throw it out and get a new one!

(Wheeee this article is just going to be about cat pee! That's a promise not a threat!)

Guess what the cats are getting for Christmas? That's right, a fully reno'd bathroom!

The thing about plastic is: it's porous.

The thing about cat pee is: it's filled with urea which breaks down into ammonia and soaks into all those pores in the litter box.

(Also the longer you leave pee in the box, the more ammonia it produces so like scooping daily is a huge part of keeping it copacetic on the regular. Scoop twice a day even!)

Cats are clean animals. They love to look, feel, and be clean, and it's a miracle that they don't require regular baths to keep themselves hygenic.

Their bathrooms are often neglected and there are so so many reasons for that but I think a huge one is the smell.

So I just want to go on record saying: the smell is mostly the result of neglecting to scoop regularly. Getting a new box and strenghtening the habit of scooping every day will change your cats life.

When they're in the litter box they're very close to the litter. Especially if the litter box is hooded (as many are) the air quality inside can quickly decline.

The reason DUST FREE is advertised on so many clay-alternative litters is because the dust from the clay was contributing to lung issues in cats.

Their pee hits the litter and would create a dust plume and inhaling clay particles isn't uh, healthy in the long run let alone doing it every. single. time. they use the bathroom.

It's also why I'm beg beg begging everyone to use unscented litter. Scent is unnecessary if you're scooping regularly and I just – it's such a thing we do for humans without considering the health impacts (and we know there are health impacts, even for us to be breathing in all the chemical scent all the time which is why we're so strict about it not being in baby products) of the animals like, lavender is literally toxic to cats so why does Worlds Best Litter make it?

(Some of the pine ones are naturally scented because they literally have pine tree pellets which is different but is pushed in a way that normalizes scented litter and AAAHHHH!)

Deodorizer sprays I have the same issue with.

<< Cher's dad in Clueless yelling about parking tickets voice >> the ODOR is the first warning!

If the litter stinks, there's a reason for it! Ignore at own peril yee who spray to play!

Back to the dust because I have one more thing to say about it – the dust can also literally cause urinary tract infections.

The #1 reason cats get re-homed is litter box issues so I think it's a really important often overlooked case of humans not understanding their behavioral changes are probably due to either: being sick or uncomfortable.

They get sick (dust, struvite crystal blocks, dehydration, alkaline urine) or uncomfortable (can't stand the smell or texture of the litter they're standing on), and they start using the bathroom in corners or closets or anywhere else because they associate their pain with the litter box but they're also afraid of being seen as vulnerable (because they are teeny tiny predators that I can't stop holding up and calling the cutest cat that ever lived) so they're not trying to be bad or make anyone upset they're literally trying to communicate and the result in many heartbreaking cases doesn't come down to the people who said they would take care of them improving on their own behavior but simply removing the cat from their home.

(And I'm not trying to heap shame on people who make the difficult choice to rehome a pet they cannot take care of–for any reason–but the amount of glib "I'm this close to just putting him outside permanently." responses I would get while I had Nature's Mircale in-hand actively explaining how to use it to a person who just admitted they only clean their box once a week really revealed to me the raaaaange that exists within people who own cats and what they see as their personal responsibility to their animals quality of life. I also get that they may have not had good sleep if their cat kept peeing on their mattress, like, I hold all the truths at once but I still get to conclude that many people don't know how to take care of their pets because we lack basic animal husbandry skills and then get mad at them for displaying perfectly reasonable behavior!)

Anyway, no matter how diligent you are about cleaning daily/taking all the litter out and spraying down the litter box, after six months the plastic is waning and should probably be replaced. A year is FOR SURE the time though, there's no amount of Skouts Honor enzymes to break down the bacteria that's lingering.

Okay, other rapid fire litter tips:

• Get a Litter Lifter scoop I'm not kidding it cuts the time in half
• Multi-cat litter just has more clumping agent in it
• Get a big box – cats don't need to be confined and they're less likely to pee directly on the box if there is room
• Some cats prefer hooded boxes because they're vulnerable while using it and feel more protected with only one vantage point
• Litter box is a territory, which is why having more than one box per cat is ideal!
• Nature's Miracle: Urine Destroyer IS a different formula for cats and dogs and works really well for cats. The regular formula is the same!

Okay one last thing that's just a me-thing: I don't like top-entry litter boxes. Any litter tracking that they actually help with is soooo minimal while the risks to their health are much higher. Jumping in and out of a box with shifty footing increases their risk of injury so much and especially for older cats is really hard on their hips and joints. If you want to reduce tracking, try mats that are shaped to open up their paws and keeping a vacuum handy because like, I'm so sorry to tell you this, there's always going to be tracking if you're using a clumping litter.

I got a red rug earlier this year and you can literally see every single piece of wheat grass litter they track through it so, now I vacuum twice a day. Which is why getting a cordless vacuum was MY biggest quality of life improvement!

There ARE stainless steel litter boxes now, which is great! I haven't seen one big enough for my cats in-person yet so I've held off but that really is great in terms of waste because it does feel shitty* to have this much plastic waste but it would feel worse to make my cats use the bathroom in an unsanitary environment that threatens their health!

(I am also staunchly anti-tech automatic cleaning litter boxes because while I think they've massively improved in terms of technology, the risk they pose is so high. Even if something goes wrong and the cat is okay, the risk of litter trauma feels unnecessary. I get why people like them and it's their risk to take, but I hated them and stubbornly refused to stock them at all when I was a buyer because I couldn't handle the guilt if a malfunction happened and hurt a cat who was just trying to pee!)

Oh, and just so it's here, for any enzymatic pee cleaner to work it has to soak and dry on it's own.

1. See pee stain
2. Sop up as much pee as you can WITHOUT ADDING ANYTHING
3. Spray/soak the stain with the cleaner
4. LEAVE IT TO DRY NATURALLY THAT'S HOW THE ENZYMES WORK
   1. If it's a deep/bad stain, soak it and then put a damp towel on top to elongate the time the enzymes have to break down the pee.

If you still smell it, repeat steps 3&4. If you don't get all the pee out, the animal will mark that same spot again. It IS annoying and I wish we could just tell them not to but, well, we can't so hopefully something I've written here can be helpful instead.

Okay ONE LAST THING!

If your cat has been eating the same food or just one protein source this year, maybe in the new year add some variety! Their digestive systems get "lazy" when they eat the same thing over and over and they get different nutrients out of different proteins and I know they can be stubborn or refuse so I get that but I think a lot of samey-ness also comes down to our habit of buying the same thing every time so, consider this the most gentle suggestion ever to try something slightly different (like say, duck instead of chicken from the same exact brand in the same formula!).

JAYKAY – final addendum:

Please buy your pet stuff from local brick & mortar pet stores instead of supporting Chewy/Amazon! I know the prices are cheaper NOW but that's because they're driving the local stores out of business and then, once you're trapped, the price will increase dramatically.

Local stores often have really well trained staff who aren't working on commission but work with pets & their people every single day and often have solutions and return policies that feel too good to be true! (Every single can of cat food IS guaranteed by the manufacturer so if you rinse them out and bring them back, they WILL take it and give you your money back.) The staff, in my experience both working in and patronizing them across the country, want to help. They love animals too.

Most places have special orders and making one is really as easy as talking to someone about your needs and seeing what they suggest. I take the subway and haul my 12 of my little 1lb raw food cartons back to Bushwick because I like the place I get them from and they're women-owned and do a TON of outreach with rescues and it matters so much to have these places and they are quite literally under attack by all the VC firms who are snatching up the vet offices & Chewy because they KNOW that pets are a huge market due to the fact that we love them and will spend anything to make sure they're taken care of.

Fight the power! SHOP LOCAL!

Okay that's it (really really) for today whooo smokemas!

Shoutout to BooBoo and Weem who have been absolute snuggle monsters recently (probably because the house temps are in flux since the tradeoff of living in this city is having 0.00 control over the temperature in my apartment). I love them so much it makes my teeth hurt and we had to do multiple vet trips this year and it's been A Lot to deal with but they make my life immeasurably better so the least I can do is make sure their toilet is flushed on the reg!