Secrets of the Cat_ Its Lore, Legend, and Lives - Barbara Holland [97]
Litter pans: There’s an amazing variety of products available for deodorizing litter pans; things to spray on top of the mess or stir in with it or spread out under it, and disinfectants to wash the pan with and plastic houses to contain it and its noxious smells. Changing the litter seems to be a kind of last resort, to try only when all else fails.
If there’s a dead horse in your back yard, you don’t keep spraying it with Piney Woods or Strawberry Fields, you have the horse removed.
Cat litter is a great nuisance. It’s heavy, heavy to buy and carry home and even heavier to drag out with the trash. People quite naturally strive to have each ten-pound bag last as long as possible, and longer. After a while it smells.
Cats are sensitive about their toilet functions, and have sensitive noses. If the pan smells bad to us, it must be agony to a cat, and going into one of those plastic litter-houses something like walking into the jaws of hell. A cat outdoors covers up its droppings and then turns to sniff the area to make quite sure no other creature can tell what happened there. A litter pan that tells the world what happened must be a worry, and a cat will keep trying to erase the smell, scratching the floor around it, trying to pull the shower curtain down over it.
On the other hand, what the manufacturer says smells like Strawberry Fields smells to a cat of mysterious and probably threatening chemicals, the predators of outer space, Dobermans from Mars.
All in all, it’s good of them to use a litter pan at all.
People who work professionally with problem cats say that nine out of ten cases of cats “breaking training,” as they say (rather like a football player sneaking a cigarette), can be traced to pan conditions.
We must take up the burden of cat-keeping and carry it, home from the store, out for the trash. No chemicals. No roofs, no disinfectants, no scented sprays. Just fresh litter, and a little plain water to rinse the pan, or use a plastic liner. And instead of using twice as much as recommended, hoping to make it last four times as long, use half as much, to last half as long.
A handful of baking soda mixed with the litter does no harm, but there’s no substitute for a fresh start.
Moving: A lot of cats vanish during the chaos of moving. It’s heavy stress for a cat, even more so than for us since the motives are inexplicable, and home is a deeply personal matter to a cat; to have great shouting strangers burst in and start manhandling his furniture must be a nightmare.
Put the cat in his carrier before the movers come, and put the carrier in the quietest place, the car if possible, parked in a cool spot, or the bathroom. Leave him in the carrier. Take him to the new quarters and put the carrier in the quietest place or leave it in the car. Don’t let him out until the movers have been paid and gone away and the door is firmly shut. Even then, it’s sensible to turn him loose gradually; this is a profoundly shaken cat, and may be happier locked in a bedroom with a bowl of water and some used and personally scented clothing of your own thrown around. Even if it’s a safe area for a cat to go outdoors, best to keep him in the house for a week or two to get his bearings and calm down. Get acquainted with the resident spirits and hallucinations before he has to deal with the territory problem. Spoil him a little. You can even butter his paws, if he likes butter.
Novelty: The more businesslike books on cat care feel that a cat’s needs are entirely nutritional and medical, and once he’s properly fed and vetted your responsibilities are over. Routine, they say, is soothing to a cat, and he resents change; feed him at the same hour every day and he will be content.
I don’t know. I suppose some cats resent change, maybe an old and crotchety cat whose favorite sofa has been sold down the river, but a predator’s natural life is pretty various. No two days are alike, and no two meals arrive in the same way, let alone at the same hour, and the scents of his surroundings change with every breeze. Grazing animals