It’s true. I have more than a passing interest in poop. All poop. Yours, mine, all the waste from wombat to whale. So I guess it stands to reason my new kittens Wally and Clifford are on board too. Call us afeceonados.
My first cat (Saint) Larry had a great attitude. She wasn’t fussy. She pooped wherever she happened to be when the urge hit, and it rarely hit in the litter box. Since she apparently never drank water, cleaning up after her was as chaste as picking up crackers. One almost considered not bothering to wash hands afterwards if one was busy. “Put her food dish next to it,” the experts intoned. “No one wants to poop near their food.” Larry would poop right next to her food dish if that’s where she was when the mood struck. Call it gross, but she had an admirable serenity about life.
Second Cat Tater did everything in the right place but when it came to flushing, she was all instinct and no strategy. She’d scratch the wall, or scratch the floor, or scratch the box the litter came in, but nothing ever got covered.
These kittens, though. If I don’t know where in the house they are, all I have to do is approach the litter boxes and there they are, spot on the Johnny. Clifford in particular will get right in the box when I bring out the scoop, and produce a massive turd like he’s landing the Hindenburg. It needs to snap in two or it will elevate him right up off the ground. He’ll do that three more times that same day. Clifford is a walking expandable poop tube in a fur wrapper, and to get any more shit out of him you’d have to start rolling him up tightly from the head end.
It’s impressive. I’ve been wondering what these two are doing with the voluminous amounts of kitten food they’re hoovering, and now I know. Every day they’re making an inch more Wally and Clifford and a foot of poop. If human kids grew that fast, we’d have them signed up for the NBA at nine months.
The experts say you should have at least two litter boxes for two cats, if not a third. I thought that might be excessive, but now I know why. You need to fake them out with one box while you quick-scoop the other one. Both cats seem to take offense at the poop scoopage, and keep trying to nab it back out of the scoop.
Fine. It’s weird, but it’s their poop. They aren’t the first roommates I’ve ever had who wanted me to leave their shit alone. It’s a shame I now have to lift the scoop so high above their heads that they end up dusted in slightly soiled litter. This, I told them, is why the Queen never comes over for tea anymore. “I’m dead now” is just a polite fiction.
Well, all of this was more attention to cat poop than I had been accustomed to, but within the bounds of reason. Unfortunately, Wally is also interested in mine. Let me tell you something: the first time you sit on the potty and feel whiskers at your nethermost nethers, you mind goes a dozen places at once, none of them good. It never occurred to me that there was room behind me for an entire cat to stick her nose in what I still like to think of as my personal business, thank you.
That’s the kind of thing that probably sealed it for the Queen.
Our two Siamese are very tidy when it comes to poop. I never consulted the experts, so we only have a single litter box and they have never complained. We used to have a plastic scoop like yours but I found a wire one that works faster at passing the unsoiled litter. It’s more fun talking about catshit than all the batshit that’s going on right now. :0)
Pretty quiet here. I guess I’ll have to check out substack and see what that’s all about. Loved your CSM piece about finding the night sky on garbage duty!
Thanks! Hmm. Wire scoop. I don’t love the plastic one but it’s a Tater legacy scoop and I don’t buy things I don’t need–mostly!
substack.com/@murrbrewster
This is why I’ve always had dogs. They have the good sense to poop outside, and if not in the bushes, at least on the neighbor’s lawn where I don’t have to move it.
ALWAYS on the neighbor’s lawn, as I recall. In the old days everyone had to scoop but it was never THEIR dog.
What can we do about the neighbor’s cat that uses our garden beds for their litter box?
You find out, you let me know. Grr.
I have a friend that gets a bunch of inexpensive bamboo chopsticks and sticks them upright in her garden beds to deter cats. If you look online, you can probably find the optimum spacing, Ecologically sound, cheap and easy to move.
A quietly hilarious post – so helpful these days. I am surprised that you’re surprised that you have ‘company’ in the bathroom. My visits to the throne room haven’t been private for years. Most times the cat beats me there.
My bestie Barbara’s cat Mitzi likes to see what she’s doing in the bathroom. So do her black Labs. Our pets love to study Scatological data.
My parrot, Petey, seems more interested in what I’m wearing. He can tell when I am going out even when I’m still in my pajamas. He notices different patterns in my behavior when I am going out or when I am staying home. When I’m going out, he keeps repeating “bye bye” in a forlorn tone of voice. That’s the only time he does it. He understands context.
If I’m wearing pajamas, I’m going somewhere. I don’t wear them to bed.
Neither Larry nor Tater had an interest. At least–not up close and personal.
The Granddaughter’s Male Cat Eli is so big I had to buy a bit Rubbermaid elongated Rectangle container for him, we think he’s part Maine Coon Cat and is as big as a little Dog now. He buries his poop well but seems to not care about covering a pee and he likes his Staff {ie: Me} to tend to that Box religiously. I had to Laugh at your Kittens antics, especially the last part of it.