changed filter in water fountain. two left.
hahaha perfect!
experimented with hand towel resting in the cookie sheet with raised edges that serves as a collection pan under the fountain, for the cats are messy drinkers. i draped the towel over the back of the fountain. my hypothesis was that the water would go up into the towel and evaporate, thus eliminating the puddle of standing water in the cookie sheet. i checked on it after two days and there was just a damp towel draped over a pool of standing water in the sheet.
i’ve removed the towel and just resigned myself to a permanent pool of standing water in the pan. we’ll just mop it up with a hand towel every few days. the cookie sheet is way better than having the water sit on the floor.
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Wao they are certainly drinking their water!!
They’re ok with top entry litter box?
Wowww how are they so messy?? Cat can’t handle drinking out of a dish, but the fountain is so big and deep he can’t really splash it much.
@evergreen: they’re so messy! they play in the fountain and let the water run out. only half a day passed and there was enough water in the cookie sheet to soak two little towels. =P your fountain is bigger and the waterfalls aren’t as close to the edge of the dish.
@annietuna: they are fine with the top-loading litter pan. i think they like it. we’re really glad we got a top-loader cuz lucy loves to give herself dust baths when we change the litter. she gets in there and flails the fuck around, so if we had a side-loader litter would just be everywhere, even with a door flap.
i wanted it because i first saw one at the cat jeffrey’s house when i was catsitting. their owners are rich and had a designer one, i think it was a modkat: Modkat Litter Box 79.99 or 89.99 $$$ lol. sure is pretty though.
it turns out petfood express sells ones that are similar enough for 19.99. mine has a hinge so you just flip it up to scoop. no need to move the top off and put it somewhere else. i love that because who has space to move the top cover part?
the modkat designer one has little holes so the litter falls back in to the pan when he cat walks on top of it. mine doesn’t have little holes, but it does have little bumps, and the hinge design makes any litter fall back in the box when i lift it. mine has a hinge that is just like the modkat one: it flips up through the pan itself, longwise.
the one i got for a different friend-cat i was catsitting was this one by petmate: Petmate Top Entry Cat Litter Pan - Pet Food Express Delivery although it also has a hinge, it is inferior to mine, because this one hinges on the SIDE of the pan, so any stray litter will skitter off and collect in the side against your wall. lol. weirdly i can’t find mine on petfood express’ website.
what rugs or carpets or mats do y’all use to catch litter? even with the top-loader they still track litter into the bathroom and then our feet track it all over the house. i’ve just been vacuuming more. i have a petlink plastic mat under the litter pan. it’s just ok. Petlinks Cat Litter Mat - Pet Food Express Delivery
oh, i’ve read that you should have one box per cat. not cuz they’ll use different ones necessarily but in case they need to go at the same time? i guess? those of you with multi-cat households, do you have multiple litter boxes?
i have a fantasy of building a two-tier enclosure for two boxes with steps and a maze they have to walk lined with litter-trapping material with an outer lip so litter doesn’t get everywhere, and some kind of easy mechanism to pull them out to scoop. i saw online ads for https://www.wayfair.com/pet/pdp/archie-oscar-freda-cat-home-litter-box-enclosure-aosc1605.html and didn’t even know cat box furniture was a thing. lol.
also i use a Litter Genie because my last roommate cat buranshe had one, and our apartment never smelled like litter. i love the thing. Litter Genie Plus Pail Cat Litter Disposal System - Pet Food Express Delivery
buranshe’s was from europe and called “litter locker” and had round refills that were hard to find (unless you went online, haha). we think it’s the same brand. litter genie refills are square and easy to find at pet food express.
I LOVE CAT OWNING TECHNOLOGY YALL
another important cat log: yesterday afternoon i sat on the floor in the living room and smallz sat on my lap! i pet him for a while.
he still bullies lucy away from wet food. smallz ate all the wet food in one bowl, tgen moved on to the othet bowl so i chased him out and did a weird dance where i kept him in the front room by standing in the doorway while lucy ate. first he looked really mad, like, his eyes weren’t round anymore, they were /. then he heard lucy eating and his eyes went round again and he started mewling at me piteously.
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I have the Modkat Flip one and <3 it. This reminds me I need to buy more liners! It is totally worth it. I also definitely don’t have two litter boxes and think that is kind of silly. I use Modkat’s small litter mat plus a large Ikea entrance mat, and those trap the actual litter pieces pretty well, but the cats still track a lot of dust. Especially Cat because he’s an idiot and often gets dust all up his legs and over his face. I don’t know there’s much to do about Cat being an idiot. I used to have Modcat’s large litter mat, but Cat the idiot ripped it to shreds so then I had shreds of litter mat around the apartment. Also I might have to try this litter genie thing.
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Litter robot still chugging. I use the blue mats they have at pet food express, it doesnt do enough but my weird tile-shaped-and-grained-like-hardwood floor takes care of the rest quickly.
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Lately Mariah has taken to sitting on my mouse hand. she doesnt understand how funny that is. maybe I dont either
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Omg! Felix sits on my mouse hand, too. Even when I’m gaming lol. He doesn’t seem bothered 
@judytuna Felix also likes to conjure up a dust party in the litter box, when it’s clean or dirty. We have no idea why…
We have the little box facing the wall with a mat between the wall and the box. There’s a rug nearby (more for our shoes, since this is near the entrance). That’s helped contain it somewhat?
Also: day 1 of training my cat to like his harness. He. Hates. It. Hahaha. He’s very food motivated but he wouldn’t move at all.
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Omg what a cutie. harness = true suffering
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this is the mat we have: Litter Mat | Messy Mutts
It’s pretty small, but works pretty well. Cat hasn’t destroyed it as he did a previous mat…
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a few days ago, di applied flea medicine to both cats with no freakouts!
i changed the litter yesterday. ahh, fresh litter. we’re using pet food express’ brand. it’s the odor control one, unscented: https://www.petfood.express/smart-litter-odor-control-formula-cat-litter/ we like it fine.
smallz likes to sit on my bed because it gets sun. he gets super startled when i move and he realizes i’m here. today he sniffed my hand before leaving in a huff.
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@annietuna how’s the harness training going? i really want to do it with our cats too lol. our upstairs neighbors had a harness for their kitten when they first got her, though they’re both outdoor cats now.
both cats are curious about outside. they look at the door with huge eyes if they’re in the room while i open it. i want to get a screen door, but there’s a cute awning and it would block an outswing. i sort of want to get one of those “security doors” and just cut a slice off the top and leave it closed and tall people will just have to duck. lol.
i just learned about roll-up screen doors yesterday. i took a brochure. i don’t know if they’re good enough to keep cats inside. i sure hope our cats don’t figure out that they can just shred these puny screens i got for our windows. =P
my roommate in sf and i would talk about building a catio. lol. i think it was mostly a joke. but i’d love to have a catio out of this window by my bed. all i need is some chicken wire right? lol. i already have spiders crawling on me at night (i’ve seen them) so why not just embrace outside
how did felix destroy the other mats? shredding them?
do y’all cut your cats’ nails? we are going to but it seems so hard because ours are still so scared. lucy let di pet her yesterday though. progress!
Ugh, nail trimming. I do front paws when it becomes a problem, and usually back paws don’t become a problem. You saw Kat getting stuck on furniture, right? I got Cat the other day - he sleeps on the bathroom cabinet when I’m in there so I held him down and got one paw one time and then the other paw later. Still haven’t gotten Kat yet unfortunately. If they’re okay behaved, it’s best to wait until you find them sleeping and then hold them down in a nice way and hope they stay calm or tighten your grip accordingly. If they are very bad, which yours might be, you have to catch them in a towel and wrap them up tight and pull out paws one by one. Unhappy for everyone but better with one person to hold and one to trim.
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Today was day 3! I’ve arbitrarily decided to put the harness on every other day while feeding him dry food. He’s very food-motivated and normally runs after his kibble (it doesn’t even have to be treats!)
He’s doing a lot better, but he will still lie down from time to time and refuse to move to get food that’s only a foot away. But thinking back to day 1 when he barely moved at all… it’s better.
Today was the annual vet visit, too, so I asked the vet if the harness was too tight. She demonstrated how you should be able to fit two fingers underneath comfortably. Currently, the part that goes around his stomach is tight. He actually hissed when she did that… shocking because he never hisses! Poor baby.
@judytuna want to try Come With Me Kitty™ Cat Harness & Bungee Leash ? Felix wiggled out of it before, but maybe you’ll have better luck? size L (too big?)
Yeaaaaah nail trimming. Folks say it helps to touch their paws while they’re relaxing in your lap so that they get used to it. I usually have to multi-stage it… one session, 3 claws, another one 2 more. I wrap him up in a blanket purr-ito (so named by my old roommates) so that his hind legs are covered and usually press his head away so he can’t bite. Oh, cats.
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I touch paws a lot and maybe that makes trimming better but it does not make trimming easy haha
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this afternoon, i got a second 15lb bag of litter (we accidentally got the smaller bag last week). poured it in. there are now 30lbs of litter in the box. luxurious! i also got nail scissors.
we tried to towel-wrap smallz. it was a complete failure. we’ll try again later =)
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