Excrement! Excrement excrement!

[rebeccmeister]

If you are about to eat,


Owning pets means dealing with their excrement, and with dog-sitting, my share has increased. It's not fun. Today, the worst of all of it was that Action Cat decided that the gravel in our gas fireplace looked like kitty litter, so she peed in the fireplace. I seriously hope this problem doesn't spread, or there's going to be serious trouble. Now I need to figure out how to keep her out of the fireplace, because once a cat has peed somewhere, the chances of that cat peeing there again, or of other cats excreting there, increases. And I almost caught her in time to keep her from doing it. Almost. Instead, I accidentally picked up a peeing cat. Don't try this at home, folks. And yes, I set her down the instant I realized what was happening.

And now it's just about time to walk Juniper, meaning more quality time with excrement. Speaking of Juniper, she has been a real handful today. If I ever have a dog, it will be EXTREMELY well-disciplined.


In other news, I made a new Indian dish today, and it was delicious.

Comments

[boolean263.livejournal.com]

Hopefully the last sentence is completely unrelated to the rest. (:

Hopefully I'm not repeating anything you already know when I say this, but the trick to keeping a cat from peeing where you don't want her to is cleanliness. Clean the urine up well so she can't smell it, and she's less likely to go back. (Don't use Windex or the like; there's ammonia in cat urine so the scent of your cleaner would defeat the purpose.) And keep the cat box clean; peeing around may be a sign that she doesn't want to use the box any more.

They say that when you're trying to paper-train a puppy you should pick him up and carry him to his paper when you catch him making a mess, even if it means leaving a trail of pup pee in your wake. I don't know whether that's good advice for cats though. Fortunately I've never needed to test it.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, the last sentence is completely unrelated to everything else!

Thank you for the cat pee advice. I accidentally used a cleaner that had bleach in it on the spot (bleach plus ammonia equals bad chlorine fumes), so I immediately aired the whole area out and stayed away. Maybe I'll try to be even more obsessive compulsive about cleaning the area.

Yeah, I had thoughts that carrying my cat to the litter box would be a good idea...but the volumes of pee coming out of her quickly made me change my mind. :) But I think you're completely right about the litter box...

The only challenge there is that the litter box brings in some additional dynamics. Right now, we have three cats using one litter box, which is operated by my roommate. I should really just go in and clean it when it needs cleaning. I'm not sure she's as diligent as she should be about cleaning it...The alternative is to put my litter box back into use as well...but if I do that, I want to put it in our bathroom, instead of in my room, because like all litter boxes, it doesn't smell like a rose at all times.

In any case, hopefully I won't be cursing excrement for too much longer!

[boolean263.livejournal.com]

Three cats using one box? That's generally bad news. Cats can be territorial about that sort of thing, and as your roommate has apparently proven, it's also harder to keep clean from three times the excrement. I've been told that the general rule for catboxes is that, if you have N cats, you should have N+1 boxes; though one for each cat is probably good enough.

My own cat's box is in the bathroom, largely because of the smell, but also because it's one of the few places in my apartment that isn't carpeted (to make clean-up easier in the occasion she misses). It worked out fine just for those reasons, but it became even more convenient once I discovered a brand of clumping cat litter that's actually flushable. I could just scoop from the box to the toilet. Clumping cat litter (even the non-flushable kind) is more convenient in general, so if you don't already use it, you(r roommate) may find it easier to keep clean if you switch.

Of course, the downside to having the box in the bathroom is the space it takes up. (I have a small bathroom, though.) And if litter escapes the pan, it's not fun to step on upon emerging from a shower. Floor mats and/or regular sweepings become necessary in that case.

My cat's name is Jasmine. What are your cats' names?

Litterbox is clean!

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Well, my housemate E and I thoroughly cleaned the self-cleaning litterbox today, so hopefully things will be better! But that sounds like a good rule of thumb for litterboxes. So maybe I'll put the other one back together at some point...just not tonight. :) I also like the idea of just cleaning and flushing--we've been using flushable litter, but when I had the other litterbox I was still throwing it away because that was just as convenient! Fortunately, our bathroom is big and even has the perfect spot for a litterbox if I go that route.

My cat is named Emma. Not as exciting of a name as Jasmine--what a great name and a cute cat! My housemate E's cats are named Beaker and Honeydew, after the Muppets characters. Emma is a grey tabby, but she's a cute one. Meanwhile, Beaker and Honeydew are both Tonkinese cats--very fancy and pretty. :)

Oh, and we bathed the cats today. That was popular...

Re: Litterbox is clean!

[boolean263.livejournal.com]

It must have been! When I was a kid we bathed our Siamese cats, Saffy and Cinnamon, once. Saffy bellowed so loud we were sure she'd chomp our heads off if she could.

Emma's such a cutie! She looks so playful. Beaker and Honeydew are cute too, they seem pretty laid-back. I think Emma's a good cat name, it's more creative than Tiger or Fluffy. And that's a neat site.

Finally, good luck with the litterbox or litterboxes! Cleaning the current one is a good first step. (Come to think of it, Jaz's box is probably due for a good scrubbing soon.)

[sytharin.livejournal.com]

Hey, is your subject line a quote of my email sig? Like, dude!

In other news, yay cat pee. :/

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is! Sorry, I plagiarized and didn't cite my source properly. I'll make up for that here.

I hereby declare that the phrase "Excrement! Excrement excrement!" is brought to you by the esteemed sytharin.

And yeah, yay cat pee. Hopefully this won't cause additional problems...

[sytharin.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, technically the phrase is a parody, not plagiarism - but I'll take the credit anyway.

[jwatriss.livejournal.com]

Thank god you didn't leave kitty training up to me. I'd have simply left the gas fireplace burning.

There are age old sayings like "don't shit where you eat." But I think even cats would recognize the wisdom of something as simple as "don't piss in a place where you're likely to catch fire."

It's winter, after all, and the extra heat can't hurt.