Written on February 10, 2010 – 1:00 am | by maxine |

 

Smokey here – the official Ark Feline Toileting Station Inspector!  At the end of 2009 Mrs. Noah made some toileting station decisions, which ultimately ended up with additions and subtractions.  Since we have been using these various inventions for a long time now, it is time for my review of the good, the bad, and the just plain failures!  I have my personal favourites but will attempt to give an unbiased report.  I have to admit, seeing as how we felines are rather private in our personal toileting habits, I can’t honestly say just who uses each station.  Some of us change our mind frequently and regularly like to try out the various available options.  A new toileting station system was added back in late November and it is certainly a great one that several of us like.  Andrea bought us two great big jumbo sized, covered litter boxes and Mrs. Noah added a screened grid to each one.

NOTE:  For those new to our dogandcatview.com site, a toileting station is vastly different from a traditional litter box filled with messy litter.  Here in the Ark, which is what we call our home where we live with Mrs. Noah who is our Sanitation Engineer, and her family, our toileting stations use water instead of litter.  You can read all about the concept at — Water Based Toileting Stations – where you will be introduced to the concept, which, by the way has now been modified but this article gives you the advantages of going water based.

General Observations and Tips:

1.  There should always be at least one kitty litter box or toilet station per kitty, plus one extra.  For instance, we have six cats and seven toileting stations.

2.  Believe it or not, many of us make our solid deposits in one place and our liquid deposits in a separate location.  I always use two different stations.

3.  Always keep toileting stations/litter boxes clean and smelling fresh.  We felines have very sensitive noses and if our toilet stinks, we just won’t use it. Trust me, you don’t want to find out where else we resort to for making our deposits!  Mrs. Noah always uses Odor Xit and Odor Magic and highly recommends them for keeping odours eliminated.

4.  When we talk about a screen in the bottom of a toileting station, this is what we mean: Mrs. Noah gets a plastic florescent light fixture cover that comes in a sheet and is made up of a grid of small 1/2 inch squares (looks kinda like graph paper).  She cuts a piece large enough to fit into the bottom of whatever she is using as the toilet receptacle.  Then she sews over the grid a piece of vinyl screening like you would use on a screen door.  Depending on the receptacle being used, sometimes she elevates this screened grid up off the bottom of the receptacle.  The screened grid keeps our paws from getting wet.

5.  We do keep some kitty litter on hand.  Up until recently, a couple of the other cats in our Ark had to have at least two or three tablespoons of litter placed on the screen of their toileting station.  They have now graduated beyond that need.  The litter we clearly prefer is “The World’s Best Cat Litter” and it is made of corn and is fully flushable.

6.  An advantage of using a water based toileting station is that it is easy for the Sanitation Engineer to see immediately if a feline is experiencing any problems such as blood in the liquid or solid deposits, crystals in the urine, loose stools and so on.

7.  Remember I mentioned about sensitive noses?  Always use a cleaner with no fragrance and certainly don’t use bleach as it is extremely hard on us and we will probably abandon any system that has the lingering odour of bleach.  Mrs. Noah uses Miracle II soap for cleaning our toileting stations and Andrea even bathes us using Miracle II soap because it is so mild and also effective. 

It turns out that this report is gonna take longer than I had expected so I suggest you read the articles on some of the various stations and come back next week to get my official review.  Hopefully by next week Andrea and Mrs. Noah can get a picture up of each station and then my report will make a lot more sense to you.  Until then, be sure to read these articles, realizing that some of the toileting stations have been modified since the original blogs were posted but at least you will get the general idea! 

–– The Laundry Tub station  –  it now has a screened grid in the bottom

— A Different Litter Box? – it now has a screened grid in the bottom

 

Until then, I (Smokey) your Ark Feline Toileting Station Inspector am signing off.