Cat litter!

Have you tried Sophisticat? It's nice and fine and sand-like!

I wasn't able to bring my kitty to the UK with me (he had extreme anxiety and I think the trip literally would have killed him so he's safe with my mommy now)   but we're talking about getting one 

Daily? Count yourself lucky! If I don't scoop a minimum of three times a day, my boy just goes on the floor.  

  Oh, he goes on the floor with a sparkling clean box.  I scoop multiple times a day.  By daily, I meant "throughout the day."  I'm on poop cleanup #3 right now.  There will be a fresh pile in the morning. 

I am grateful that it's poop and not pee.  I have my limits.  Okay, I don't.  They're my babies.  But still.    

Does anywhere in the UK sell Feliway?  It has been known to help.  I've seen in in Petsmart in the US.  Cat Attract is another product used for such situations.

As for litter, I use Tidy Cat for my kitties.  It seems to last a long time, and provides good odor control.

Do you think it may be anxiety that is causing him to pee? any infection?  My cat did that once and she checked him for urinary tract infections which she said is more common in male cats.  Turns out it was anxiety in my case - kitty Prozac cured it.

My cat has had the worst experience with going the bathroom since we got here :/ First,  he didn't like the litter box so we got a larger one. Then he didn't like the litter, so we changed it three times to get something he DOES like. (He insists on clumping litter!) and now, we MUST keep it perfectly clean.

If we didn't do the above, he poops NEXT to the litter box then gets out and pretends to cover it. What? Seriously, Tegan? What?

As horrible as this is, I'm glad other people have my problem. I was afraid my cat was just "special".

If we didn't do the above, he poops NEXT to the litter box then gets out and pretends to cover it. What? Seriously, Tegan? What?

As horrible as this is, I'm glad other people have my problem. I was afraid my cat was just "special".

Yes!  YES!  Omg, the faux covering of poop on hardwood floor cracks me up.  I mean, it also annoys me, but when I've caught him in the act, and he's just standing there pawing the floor...

I've ordered some new sophisticat litter to try out.  He definitely doesn't have a UTI or anxiety, but we do think he was traumatized by the constipation episode.  The vet is hoping that new litter will "reset" him.  I am hoping this, too.  I don't like to think about how much money we've spent on vet bills this year and other than de-poopifying my constipated cat, we've had no luck at all. 

If we didn't do the above, he poops NEXT to the litter box then gets out and pretends to cover it. What? Seriously, Tegan? What?

LOL! I think this must be pretty common - my boy does it too!

We use the wood pellet "Beauticat" stuff.  The bag lasts forever, and you don't need to use a lot.  I scoop the poo when I see it (or smell it), usually at least twice a day, and I empty the whole thing every two or three days or so.  But since we use so little (just a single layer), it is just dealing with having to empty it every couple of days.  It only takes about a minute (you don't need to totally wash out the box every time you empty it if there's no poo on the bottom.  I usually give it a good wash about once a week if it's not needed in between).

However, the wood stuff really takes care of any pee smell.  Provided the poo is taken care of, you can't really tell a cat lives here until you see this giant cat staring at you.

ETA: We used to use Hartz PH 5 in the States.  It was some of the cheapest litter you could get, but it worked well with our cat.   I so wish we could find it here.

I think what works really depends on the cat.  Some people thinks Hartz doesn't work, but swear by something like TWBCL.  We tried TWBCL, and it did nothing to cut the smell of our cat's urine.

We use the wood pellet "Beauticat" stuff.  The bag lasts forever, and you don't need to use a lot.  I scoop the poo when I see it (or smell it), usually at least twice a day, and I empty the whole thing every two or three days or so.  But since we use so little (just a single layer), it is just dealing with having to empty it every couple of days.  It only takes about a minute (you don't need to totally wash out the box every time you empty it if there's no poo on the bottom).

However, the wood stuff really takes care of any pee smell.  Provided the poo is taken care of, you can't really tell a cat lives here until you see this giant cat staring at you.

My cat hates the wood pellets. I wished she liked it because it's nice and lightweight, easy to change, and it really does keep the pee smell away. Before I moved to Dublin I asked DH to pick up some cat litter and a box so it would be ready for when we got there. I specifically told him to get the clay kind and not the wood pellets. Of course he gets the wood pellets because the guy at the pet shop told him it was the shiz.  He insists that she has to use this because she can't be fussy. Uh huh. What happens? She pees and poops on the floor next to the litter box. He got a big, 'I told you so!' from the both of us.

Yeah I am pretty lucky with our cat.  He's not particular about the box, litter, or anything like that.  He only went outside the box when he had a series of UTIs, and we got him back into the box using habit by using Feliway.  We had also switched our litter at the time thinking that his UTIs might have something to do with the pine litter, but eventually switched back after he got better.

When we used clay litter in the States, on a couple of occasions he took the poo out of the box on his own.  We knew it was from the box and not fresh because it was all dried out like it becomes from being in clay litter (complete with little bits).  Not ideal, but I suppose it's better than him going outside the box.

I second the Litter Purrfect from Costco!

Thirding.

And as a nice bonus, you can rinse out the plastic containers, cut off the tops, and poke some holes in the bottom for instant garden planters. You should see how many we've got on our deck, hahah

Otherwise if we're not near Costco and kitty's got to poo, we pick up the big bags of Cat San from Tesco. But mister prissy definitely prefers the Litter Purrfect.

Beauticat has totally changed their formula.  There were always mild variations in the litter.  It might be slightly lighter or darker depending on the bag, but never dark, dark, and it always smelled and worked the same.  Beauticat has changed its name (I don't know if they were always owned by Sophisticat), and since then, the litter has been less consistent.  The last bag we bought was dark and smelled awful.  When my cat used it, it turned into a horrible rank dark mush.  Even he didn't know what was up.  For a cat very tolerant to changes in litter (in fact he took in the idea of wood litter without much of a notice), he was very wary of that bag of Beauticat.

So, we're trying Bio-Catolet Cat Litter.  It's good so far, except it really doesn't do a great job in the pee masking smell.  I changed the first box of it last night, and it nearly knocked me over.  I guess we could go back to non-clumping clay, but it is relatively hard to find.  The only non-clumping clay our local Sainsbury's is Basics.  I am not all that adverse to trying a cheap litter (our one in the States was v. cheap and worked a treat), but the lugging it and not having it work would be a pita.

I guess I will try our new Morrisons. Gives us an excuse to check it out anyway.

When I was in England my Sainsbury's had an own brand lightweight litter that I used all the time. I liked it because it was really light to carry home on the bus. It was non-clumping clay, which is what I prefer. It was relatively inexpensive, but I watched the price creep up over a year because apparently I was a very good customer and now the litter was in demand!

When I was in England my Sainsbury's had an own brand lightweight litter that I used all the time.

I swore by Sainsburys own brand for ages (though it was the super clumping one). I've now switched to the Costco brand (can't recall the name - the one in the gigantic green plastic bottle) because it's cheaper and I like buying it in bulk but it also clumps pretty hard (which is my number one priority). It's the same brand that Costco sells in the US too.

BTW I feel so sorry for you lot who have to scoop more than once a day - I'm SO glad that my boys don't have picky toileting issues - it's all I can do to scoop once a day!!

Everyone seems to love the Costco brand one.  While I love living in central London and not having a car, it's a big PITA when it comes to hauling heavy stuff like cat litter.   

When I was back in the US at the holidays, I was staring longingly at the giant 40lb container of Fresh Step.