Ideal Bite

Has anyone tried using shredder paper? If so, does it work well? Using shredder paper or even shredding your own newspaper would be a lot cheaper and maybe better for the planet.

My poor 12-y/o cat was just diagnosed with kidney failure (not related to the pet food scare...just a coincidence). Has anyone dealt with this before? I need to adjust her diet but prefer to do it with homemade foods if possible...any advice? I'm even going to try a holistic vet for acupuncture...

I use Arm & Hammer High Performance, which is all natural and biodegradable. It smells GREAT, doesn't track and lasts longer than the clay based litter I was using before.

So am I the only person who had trouble with the corn?? The cat would use the litterbox (in my bedroom) at night, right before we went to bed. I would turn off the light and within two minutes, I would hear mice in her litterbox, eating the corn! (I live in the country, so mice are just a fact of life.) About 10 seconds later, the cat would be diving through her own litterbox, after the mice. To say it was messy is an understatement. I had to throw out the whole thing...

I make my own catfood and it is not that hard. I got the recipe from the book Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats, the amazon link is below: http://www.amazon.com/Pitcairns-Complete-Guide-Natural-Health/dp/0875962...

I recently heard that kitty poops shouldn't be flushed, because they carry germs that are actually killing off otters in the bay....any one else heard anything of this ilk?

I swear by FELINE PINE. I have tried everything. This product is dust free and completely eliminates odor. it is made from recycled sawdust. I put the old litter in my mulching pile. They also make a Feline Pine Scoopable litter for people who like a clumping litter. It uses guar so it doesn't hurt the cats digestive system. I prefer the original Feline Pine. Dust Free!

My cat has bladder and kidney issues. Cranberry juice is good for them but they won't take it willingly. We use Honest Kitchen Prowl and rehydrate it with 1 tbs of pure cranberry juice to 2 tbs of water and she eats it up. We were also recommended to cut out kibble all together and feed raw meat and bone to accent the Prowl.

I've been using Swheat for years, starting when the stray I executively-decided to adopt 3+ years ago had to have reconstructive hip surgery in order to live; we were advised to keep him away from normal or even regular clumping litter while he healed, and we stuck with it. The cats love it (they readily use it, at least), and in fact when our other elderly gentlemen was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and had to have radioactive iodine treatment (all's well, btw, 2 years later), Swheat was the brand we were told to use, as we HAD to flush the litter down the toilet...if we put it into the soil or the trash, well, you get the idea. (Apparently water treatment facilities are better prepared to deal with radioactive isotopes than landfills, or so the vet said.) At any rate, Swheat to the rescue again!

I support any effort to use products that leave a smaller footprint. However, to automatically assume that the environmental impacts of mining fuller's earth and other clays to produce cat litter are greater than producing it from pine, wheat, or other factory-farmed materials is ridiculous. The clay is mined from open pits (not "strip mined") that occupy a very small area. Virtually no chemicals are used in processing the clay except as demanded by customers who want dyed and perfumed litter. I agree that tossing anything into a landfill, whether clay, wheat, pine, etc. that could otherwise be recycled doesn't make sense. But I wonder if tossing used biodegradeable litter into the garden is a good idea. Might it not release contaminants (E. coli) just as if the cat pooped outside with no litter? Who knows, maybe tossing clay-based litter into the garden is actually better, since it probably holds onto the waste products far longer than sawdust or wheat chaff. Seems like the best alternative is to dispose of whatever kind of litter you use in a dry composting toilet.