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Pac-Men in the Litter Box
A Product Review and Consumer Alert (Humor)
By Nan Jacobs c/April 2001
Our cats' litter box is very clean today. Do you want to know why?
Having two indoor cats, and a father/husband with a sensitive nose, my son and I decided to give a product called Premium Choice Litter Beads a try. We got it for $11.99 at the local pet store. It comes in a 7.6 "liters by volume" bag. Carrying weight is about 8 pounds or 3.63 kilograms (compared to almost twice that for traditional litters in an approximately equivalent volume).
Shall we begin? Please bear with me while I review the less controversial product claims first.
"LITTER BEADS LAST LONGER". They recommend a full change once a month for one cat, more often for multi-cat households. We have two cats. Double the pleasure, double the poo …doo-da-dee-doo-da-dee-doo-da-dee-dooo… Ahem.
· The 7.6 liters by volume bag (why 7.6, we wonder?) fills our large, covered litter box (we call it the X2-PU model) with the recommended one-and-a-half inches of litter beads per change of litter. Smaller litter boxes would probably use a half bag per change. Personally, I don't think Litter Beads would be an economical choice for anyone with more than two cats unless they're outdoor cats and only use the litter box for emergencies.
· When you scoop, you get the poop and a few clinging beads, nothing more. However, the beads don't slide out the slots of a typical cat litter pooper-scooper. This necessitates the purchase of a special litter beads scooper, one with round holes just the right size for the beads, for which an engineer was paid far less than (eeny meeny miny moe…his or --) her worth to develop, or the use of your best ice cube tongs, or the creation of some Rube Goldberg device that will spare the beads whilst removing the other stuff. However, the other stuff is not flushable; the directions instruct you to put the waste in the trash.
· We've used the beads for two weeks now, and it looks as though in another week and a half, we'll need to replace them. Unfortunately, it also appears that we'll wind up tossing a large portion of perfectly good beads along with the cloudy beads (see below). At a penny a bead, give or take … Well, who's counting? We used to write for Themestream …
KEEPS THE LITTER BOX DRY and INHIBITS BACTERIAL GROWTH.
· The beads do stay dry instead of becoming soggy clumps of urine-soaked, bacteria-inviting litter. I assume if one pops open, the others will absorb what squirts out. UNLESS YOU WAIT TOO LONG TO CLEAN THE BOX.
· The beads themselves absorb the urine and, originally clear, they turn cloudy or white, so you can easily tell when a full change is due. The downside to this is that you can't scoop out the urine in one big (smelly) clump (see above). ESPECIALLY IF YOU WAIT TOO LONG TO CLEAN THE BOX.
· You need to know that the beads don't disguise the poo as well as regular litter does. If the sight of fecal matter (I knew there had to be a more mature-sounding word) makes you gag, don't get litter beads.
LESS SMELL
· There's certainly less urine smell, UNLESS YOU WAIT TOO LONG TO CLEAN THE BOX. Notice a pattern, here? I suppose I should explain. If you wait too long, the beads become "full" and the excess urine simply lies on the bottom, stinking.
I don't notice the poo smell unless it's been recently perpetrated. My husband, on the other hand, notices it all the time, even when no fecal matter is present. He notices lots of smells I don't. Do men have more sensitive senses of smell? Is that trait left over from the hunter-gatherer days? What does this have to do with kitty litter? Nothing. Move along, Nan.
·
DUST FREE
· The beads are truly dust free, a real plus if you have allergy-prone cats and people in the house, which we do.
COST EFFECTIVE
· For us, over time the cost is probably going to be more than Scoop Away, and clean up can be a challenge (read on), but for that small inconvenience and the slight price difference (given the beads' life-expectancy and our user profile), I like the hygiene aspects and light carrying weight of this product. The cats, on the other hand, and judging by the amount of clean-up in the cellar litter box, prefer the old, smelly stuff. [see note below]
Now… let's explore something that I think warrants consumer sanity warning notices being placed on the package.
LOW TRACKING.
Well now. "Low" is a relative word isn't it? This all depends on your cat(s) and your litter box. I *highly* recommend using beads with *covered* litter boxes only.
Jessie, our year old April Fool cat, gets in the box, does her business, scratches perfunctorily, and then hops out, tracking a few beads with her. Willy, on the other hand, gets in the box, scrapes vigorously for two hours, does his business and then scrapes for another two hours (by which time Jessie is crossing her legs). The sheer energy behind his wild, two-pawed scratching flings the beads out the box cover's opening, far beyond the rug meant to catch tracked out litter. Willy hops out and, being a stately three years old, ignores the little round beads.
Jessie makes a dash for the box, is distracted by all the little round things (which she can see, but we can't because our floor is white and we're five feet closer to the ceiling than she is), chases them all over the bathroom (being round, they roll beautifully), remembers what she was about to do, does it, tracks a few more beads out, chases the new ones around, then wanders off to swat Willy's tail.
Next comes mom with the broom. I sweep the beads together, so far as that's possible, what with them scattering in all directions (because for every bead I spot, ten more are camouflaged against the white floor). Eventually, hours later, they're all corralled. Meanwhile, both cats are crossing their legs, holding out for privacy over relief.
Now it's time to get the beads swept onto the dustpan. To do so, one must tilt the dustpan slightly. Naturally, the whole bunch (a gaggle of geese… a baggle of beads?) doesn't roll right on, so I attempt to sweep the next group on. Those already on the dustpan immediately roll off. And so forth.
At last I give in and drag out the vacuum cleaner. This works only minimally better. The cats wet themselves, since they must uncross their legs to flee the Dreaded House Monster, and the wee round dudes manage to escape undetected, thanks to the white floor. I imagine I hear snickering. They begin to take on a life of their own, akin to tiny Pac-men.
Now imagine if you have a toddler in the house or a child with "happy hands" (that is to say, can't leave anything untouched). I'm not convinced this scenario couldn't still happen in our house … but let's not think about that too hard.
So, along comes the kid, spots these nifty round beads. They feel cool. They roll cool. And look, there's a whole box full! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! They *are* cool! "Here kitty kitty kitty!"
**Giggle** Shuukashuucka, swat, wheeee! Sklish, skittle scattle. Chase, wahoo, swat, hissssss! (Roll, roll, scatter, SNICKER.)
No sense bothering with the broom. I haul out the vacuum cleaner, jam on the Doublewide, Turbo-Charged, Super Duper Sucker Upper attachment (so *that's* what it's for) and calmly suck them all up. Cats, kid, Pac-beads.
And that's why the litter box is clean.
******************************
***NOTE: 7/2001: we gave up on litter beads about a month after starting with them. Expense, mess (see above), and cats' preference, not necessarily in that order, were the critical factors.***
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