Update on the cat box

I tried the Pam idea a couple weeks ago and sure. It helped a bit, but you know what I discovered? What really helps is adding more litter to the box. I know: DUH. The more litter, the less likely the pee-ball will be to reach the bottom of the box and therefore stick.

I’ve come up with my own version of Boyle’s Law that I think demonstrates the reality of kitty litter buying:

pV = k

In Boyle’s Law, p means pressure of a gas, V means the volume of the gas, and k is the constant representing the relationship. Of course, k can also represent the relative temperature, because if the pressure increases and the volume remains the same, the temperature goes up. So, in essence, k represents temperature.

But if you consider kitty litter, the inverse relationship between (temperature and (pressure or volume)) in gasses also applies to relationship between the (environmental friendliness and (smelliness or weight)) of kitty litter.

pV = k

p represents the smelliness (pee-yoo!) of the litter, V represents the weight of the litter, and k represents the environmental friendliness factor. So let’s examine some common litters.

Traditional Clay Litter

5 * 5 lbs. = 25 EFV

Clumping Clay Litter

4 * 4 lbs. = 16 EFV

Silicon Crystals

1 * 2 lbs. – 2 EFV

Pine Litter

3 * 2 lbs. = 6 EFV

Swheat Scoop

2 * 4 lbs. = 8 EFV

Of course, there are lots of crazy factors like “tracking,” “covering of poop,” and “frequency of scooping”, but this is my subjective analysis of the different options. In the end, I’m happy with Swheat Scoop and shall continue using it for the meantime. If you have thoughts about the subject or my formula, please leave a comment. Heck, leave a comment regardless.

Crazy Idea of the Week #1

Swheat Scoop LitterSo, today is “trash day”. Meaning, we gather the trash, put it out in barrels tonight and the city picks it up in the morning. Michael’s job is to gather all the little rubbish bins from the various rooms in our condo and mine is to clean the litter boxes. We have two, because we have two cats. One little one who is very persnickety about the cleanliness of her box, and one big one, Parker, who is on a diet but still lays cable like a doberman.

Like everyone in the 1990’s, I switched my (now deceased) cat Kitty Carlisle from plain clay litter, which needs to be changed in its entirety on a periodic basis, to clumping litter, which can (and should) be cleaned of waste regularly so the litter that remains can be used for a longer period of time. That was fine, but even the “flushable” stuff isn’t really flushable and it’s heavy. I mean, it’s still clay, right?

Then, a couple years before I met Michael, I discovered crystals! Wow, is that stuff great! It’s light, meaning you can carry two bags of it under one arm and that can last you a month if you have two cats. Well, not with finicky Gertrudis, but still, it super effective. It’s incredibly absorbent too. You can’t smell a thing unless one of the kitties just took a big dump and didn’t even try to cover it. A couple problems, though. All litter gets tracked through the house. No matter what the package says, it’s going to get everywhere, but you learn to live with it. Still, little crumbly bits of silica are much more unpleasant to step on than bits of clay. They crackle under shoes leaving a fine dust like salt. And in bare feet — ouch. The biggest problem, though, is the environment. Silica is what glass is made of, in essence. That shit don’t degrade. After a while I started to imagine landfills full of Pampers and my cat’s used litter.

So, what’s a kitty-daddy to do? After Kitty died and we adopted 23-pound, one-eyed, lovable Parker, we switched to pine litter on the advice of our first-floor neighbor Karin and renowned cartoon/writing genius Lynda Barry. Yeah, it smelled okay. And it was light too, like the silica. And sure, it is biodegradable! (But trust me, it’s not good for the compost, no matter what Karin tells you.) But you know what? That shit don’t clump. I felt back to square one with litter. You have to dump it all every week. And when it gets tracked, it gets tracked.

Lately, we’ve been using a litter called Swheat Scoop. It’s made of wheat, so yay! It’s biodegradable. It’s still pretty heavy to carry, but it masks the smell of cat waste, as long as Parker covers his dinosaur turds. And yes, it tracks, but no worse than first-generation clumping litter and doesn’t crumple into dust like crystals. Still, I’m pretty unsatisfied.

Why am I unsatisfied, you ask? Because when a cat pees in wheat, what happens? It clumps, yes. But it clumps in the way flour does. In fact, when I clean out a dirty Swheat Scoop litter box, it has the smell of bread dough made with cat pee — cause, that’s what it is! And when those glutens start to strand, what do you end up with? A sticky glob of cat pee and grain stuck fast to the bottom of your cat box. I had to buy a metal scoop to replace the plastic one in order to dig all the glop out.

Therefore, my crazy idea for this week is to spray the bottom of the cat box with non-stick cooking spray. Specifically, I used Pam Professional. Think about it. When you make bread, what’s the first thing you do with the dough? You put it in an oiled bowl and put it in a warm place. So, if my cats are spraying warm liquid on raw glutenous grains, shouldn’t I coat the surrounding container?

I have no idea if this crazy idea will work. But exactly one week from today is trash day, so I’ll let you know!

Update: Here’s what I found out.

Imortalized in comics once again

I got a new haircut. Yeah, it’s a “fo-mo” or “faux-hawk” or whatever you want to call it. But despite its passé and perhaps cheesy status, it looks good on me.

My officemate/geek-crush Michael Klein follows an online comic strip called Laugh-Out-Loud Cats by Adam Koford. It’s pretty brilliant, looking like Pogo or The Katzenjammer Kids, but with hobo kitties speaking dialogue like a lolcat.

A day after he saw my new haircut, Michael K. send Michael C. and me the latest Koford comic with a note that read, “Look! It’s you guys!” Indeed, it is.

Presenting Parker, the Monocular Cat

Ta-daaaaaaaaaaa.

We have a new addition to our household! It’s been over a year since we lost Kitty and in that time, Gertrudis has managed to lick all the fur off her lower abdomen. She’s also gotten extremely loving, which is just weird for her. I’ve been trying to convince Michael that she’s lonely now and it’s only recently that he’s come to agree with me. On reading this content, it will be easy to figure out the perfect shelter for your pet.

So my co-worker Chrissy walks into my office last week and says, “Does anyone want a one-eyed cat?” Who can resist such an offer, especially after seeing the adorable picture (see left) she forwarded me?! He was the pet of her boyfriend’s friend Matt and sadly, he had to give him up when he moved in with roommates with two dogs. He did find a temporary home for him, but sadly, that wasn’t even going well because of an allergy situation. Poor buddy! He’s really loving and everyone wants him but no one could take him!

He was born in Baltimore about 4 1/2 years ago and the story is that he and his litter were in a fire. He’s the only one to survive, poor thing, and apparently an infection meant the vet had to take his eye. At least it happened when he was young. He did have a thread-eating incident last year and had to have surgery, but other than that, he seems to be in perfect health.

We were only going to meet him last night and take him home on Wednesday because Michael left for San Francisco today. But before we even got to his house, Michael had already made up his mind that we needed to take him right away!

He’s a timid little chubbus, but boy can he love. Even strangers get the full rubdown when he meets them, so if Gertrudis was lonely, she won’t be now. He’s in a “safe room” for a couple weeks so we can introduce them very, very gradually. Gertrudis didn’t even realize he was in there for a couple hours, but boy — when she did figure it out, she made sure to keep watch on that door. We think she spent the whole night outside his room growling at a steady, low volume. She’s better today now that I cleaned his litter box thoroughly. Man, his pee stinks to high heaven and we’re hoping it’s just cause he’s nervous. I’m not too worried. Putting his litter box through the dishwasher and giving him fresh “crystals blend” seem to have done the trick.

You’ll be hearing more about him soon, I’m sure. And I’ll even try to get some pics of him in his new digs if he’ll come out from behind the sofa long enough.