Archive for November, 2009
Lift the cat litter pan and tilt it toward the back. Shake the pan gently up and down. You should see urine balls emerge and float toward the top. Repeat this step, lifting the panand shaking a few times but this time at the opposite end. At this point, the majority of the waste is now on the surface and available for easy removal. If shaking the pan causes the litter to throw off a lot of dust, skip this step. The dustiness of the litter will depend on the brand and quality that you buy.
Remove clumps from the edges. All too often you’ll find a clump of litter cemented to the pan. This stuff is clay and it sticks well. Do not attempt to scrape this mess off. It will fall into crumbs that are impossible to remove with a scoop and will contaminate your litter and the pan will stink of urine no matter what. This is important – keep the pee balls intact to the extent possible. Here’s the trick: remove the cemented waste by lifting the pan so that you can tap on the outside of the pan and knock off the cling on in one piece. If you have a liner, pull on it so that the clump turns on its side and falls off of the plastic.
Scoop waste into a zip bag, zip close, then put into a small trash can with a lid. Take out with the trash. You will never have a smell or the mess of a spill.
Replenish the litter. Use enough litter up to 2 inches tall, since most cats (especially long-haired) won’t use litter that’s deeper or might dig a big hole, causing litter to spill over the sides. Use your scoop to grade the gravel so that it slopes up high on both ends of the cat litter pan, forming a gentle trough. This slope is key to keeping your pan clean – you want to maximize the depth of the litter where the cat pees so that the litter can absorb the waste before it reaches the plastic sides or bottom of the pan and sticks to it like glue. Cats, especially male cats, tend to urinate at either end of the pan, rarely in the middle.
My last two years of college I lived in a small house with four other guys. Although our landlord was adamant about his no-pet policy, we adopted a cat a few weeks after moving in. Luckily for us, the cat loved the outdoors and was never around when the landlord came by.
During the summer months, however, the cat had a propensity to shed throughout the house. Although he would clean himself for hours everyday, there was still white hair wherever you looked. I decided to try out the Furminator deshedding tool, and not only did it solve the shedding, but it also did wonders for his coat. Our cat grew to love his daily grooming sessions, as he now had more time to play and nap.
Have you ever noticed that when you yawn, your dog yawns with you? Crazy as it may seem, recent scientific studies have proven that when a human yawns that yawn is contagious to dogs, indicating that they may be capable of empathy.
Dogs have proven to be skillful at reading human intentions, picking up human hand gestures, and other behavioral cues. If your dog is yawning, it may be time for him to go into his dog crate to get some shuteye.
A few years ago my friend asked me to watch his dog while he went out of town for a week. He lived right next door, so I didn’t think that it would be that much of a hassle. It turns out, however, that his one-year-old Golden Retriever had some separation anxiety issues.
The first time I went over to check in on the dog, she had already knocked over all of the furniture and ripped holes in most of the upholstery. Throughout the week this trend continued, and I was forced to spend a prolonged amount of time there calming the canine. The only toy that could keep the pup amused was her Kong dog toy, which I was sure to cram full of treats every time I had to leave.