Thursday, May 15, 2008

Feline Pine Review

For a while now I have been frustrated whenever I've had to maintain my cat, Dizzy's, litter box. I hate smelling even a faint odor from the litter box and I don't ever remember it being such a problem in the past. I think the older Dizzy gets the stronger the fumes reek from her squatting hole.

We have forever used the traditional clumping clay litters that you'll find in any grocery or pet specialty store. Whenever I would pour the clay litter into Dizzy's litter box to replenish her scratching area there is always the issue of the dust that'll cloud up and out of the box. In preparation I hold my breath and squint my eyes to try and keep the dust away from me.

The more I read about clay litters the more it scares me of how it could be really bad for my cat. The dust isn't good for them and if you have a wee kitty who likes to eat litter the clay could be fatal to them.

Not only is the clay litter bad for my cat but it's not good for the environment and I HATE the litter that is tracked on the floor from Dizzy's feet.

I've looked up different options that I had for Dizzy's litter box and finally decided on (clumping) Feline Pine. There was another brand that I really wanted to try but my options were limited in this area and the Lufkin area. I still don't know if I can find Feline Pine here in Nac but I did find it at PetSmart in Lufkin. I was really surprised at how little the box was and how extremely light it felt in my hands. It cost a little over four dollars and I figured yeah that's cheap but not if this box only fills up Dizzy's box one time. Four dollars for one fill/one use would not do it for me.

Over the weekend I scrubbed out Dizzy's litter box and filled it with the Feline Pine. The texture of the stuff is very much like saw dust. While dumping it out it felt so light like there wasn't anything in the box. I was supposed to use enough of it to fill the litter box three inches deep. In doing so I think I used up about a little more than half of the box.

I kept my fingers crossed that Dizzy would use the new litter and wouldn't shit in a corner in some dark corner of the house. She's never done that before but I've never changed up her litter either.

Success! I went to scoop the next day and was amazed that I wasn't knocked over by the smell of urine. No matter how much a litter claims there will be no stench there is always a strong ammonia smell from the urine when it comes to clay litter. The Feline Pine actually did a great job in keeping the odor down to a low minimum. I wasn't really expecting that so it was a great bonus. Also, the urine was so easy to scoop up where as clay litter would clump but as you went to scoop it would crumble into little pieces and fall back into the litter to mix with the dry stones. Also, while trying to scoop up wet cat poop you can imagine the horror behind that. Usually, the wet poop would stick some to the scooper and your face stays in a scrunched up cringe as you try to close your nostrils to the stench. My first wet poop scooping experience with the Feline Pine wasn't as dramatic. I saw fresh wet poop and I flipped it over like a pancake and the turd was totally covered in the Feline Pine. It scooped up in one piece and didn't leave anything behind on the scooper.

Some of the reviewers of the clumping Feline Pine have claimed that their box lasted for a whole month with regular scooping. I shall test that and see if it is true for our household too and if so then four dollars a month on a green solution for cat litter is so damn suh-weet!

And one last comment...no more little rocks to step on from litter tracking from Dizzy's feet. YAY!

I give this new litter two green thumbs up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am going to look for this stuff, like, TODAY.

Zay said...

Pacer if you have a PetSmart then you should be able to find it. I was pretty shocked that Wal-Mart, the master of all, didn't have any green cat litter products.

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