Your Cat's Litter Box

Cats are probably one of the easiest cats to take care of because they do not demand a lot of attention and certainly because they poop indoors in their litter box.

Cats are actually very clean animals who like to have their litter box clean. Certainly, as humans we don't like to do our business on a dirty toilet!

You will need a larger litter box to accomidate your adult Ragdoll cat. Since your Ragdoll cat is larger than the average cat, s/he will also produce larger fecal matter, so you will want to make sure you clean the litter box twice daily. If you think about it, cats have a keener since of smell than humans and they, much like us, wouldn't enjoy walking in their own feces or waste.

A cat on a proper diet of moisture-rich canned food will often pee AT LEAST 3 x/day. 1 cat with 1 box will have AT LEAST 21 urinations in that box before you flush his toilet, i.e. clean his litter box, before you dump that litter box at the end of 1 week.

It is important to consider clumping clay litter for you cat because if the litter does not clump the removal of it is more difficult and leaves reminents in the box for the cat later on. Urine soaks into plastic which is porous - leaving a lasting odor for the life of that box unless using liners which annoy many cats and really are not necessary if a litter box is properly maintained.

They do not make commercial litter boxes big enough for large cats and they do not make any hooded boxes that are even close to being large enough. So a good substitute is to use storage boxes, like ones made by Sterlite or Rubbermaid.

You should have one litter box per cat. You really need two pans for two or more cats.

If you have a hooded litter box, the ammonia odor is trapped in these pans and can really be offensive to your cat (and you!). You should scoop the solid waste daily. Cats have very little tolerance for their previous waste!

I only recommend clumping litter. I ONLY use a clumping litter as all of the NON-clumping litters are very unsanitary and cause many, many cases of elimination issues. Non-clumping litter allows cats to walk in a litter box that is literally saturated in urine (dry or wet). When urine dries, things are made worse. The only thing that evaporated urine leaves is water because it evaporates. This makes things worse because the uric acid/ammonia is no MORE concentrated.

NO ODOR should be present in a litter box. Use clumping litter so that ALL urine and ALL feces can be removed and there will not be an issue with odor.

I received this advice from a very smart and knowledgable vet, Dr. Pierson. You can check out her website about cats below.

Dr. Pierson's Litter Box Page