Tiddle's Tinkles (Cat Litter & Litter Boxes in general)

Member Name: Mad_Wicca

Product:	Cat Litter & Litter Boxes in general
Date:	29/08/01 (1137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You know your cats aren't going in anyone's garden

Disadvantages: You have to clean it out!

A few months ago my local newspaper contained a series of angry letters from people in the area who were fed up with cats using their gardens as toilets. Many suggestions as to how this could be curbed were also printed, with everything from orange peel and tin cans on sticks to the rather more ridiculous idea of buying a dog to see the cats off.

As the owner of four cats, I have always been very aware of where my cats are doing their business, and from watching them carefully I felt sure they were only sticking to my own garden. Maybe this was because they were confined to the house until they were all at least six months old, perhaps in some way this told them that this was their 'patch'. Whatever the reason, I felt quite sure that they were only 'defecating in their own backyard', to rework an old saying!

Where I live, the back gardens for two streets are divided by a long back lane running down the middle, and the walls inbetween each garden are only about four feet high. There are a lot of cats living in the area and nearly every other week I seem to see a new one. Two or three of them resemble my own cats so closely that sometimes, late at night, peering down the garden I have mistaken them for my own! I thought if I could make this mistake then my neighbours definitely would, and upon seeing a ginger tabby or black and white blob evacuating themselves amongst the daisies they may think it was my cats.

I get on very well with my neighbours and I really didn't want to take the chance of falling out with them over something that was not my fault. It's hard to prove your cat wasn't the one messing in their garden when your neighbours are not cat owners and therefore just tend to note that a) it was a cat, b) it was a tabby, c) next door has a tabby cat; leading to 'next doors cat is sh**ing in my garden!' Protests of 'I really don't think it was my Leo,' just don't cut the mustard and
as far as they are concerned, it was your cat.

As a cat owner I too was going around having to dig out large 'alien' lumps from my flower beds, but this in no way bothered me. I had decided to have four cats and therefore disposing of their waste was just another part of the job of caring for them. It may not be a pleasant part of the job, but for them and for me it was a necessary part. And so I would grab a trowel and a plastic bag and dig for brown gold.

It was whilst doing this over a period of time that I began to notice that my cats weren't randomly depositing their 'little presents' around the garden. They seemed to all be sticking to one area, a large, L-shaped flower bed at the bottom of the garden. This had been built by the previous owners of the house, and although only two bricks high it was very crooked and sloppily done. Nothing had ever grown in this flower bed and I had never planted anything in it, deciding that as I got around to sorting the garden out I would knock it down.

As all the inside of my house needed sorting out first I wouldn't be getting to the garden for some time. However, the idea that I really had to devise something that would not only show the cats where to toilet, but would also show disbelieving neighbours that they were just going in my garden, was pressing on my mind. I knew the cats preferred the unused flower bed but it was too big to just leave it as it was, I needed something more compact, but something that wouldn't put the cats off.

After a few days of mulling it over I took my trusty hammer and knocked the flower bed down. I was now left with a pile of bricks and an even larger pile of soil. I spent some time with a cup of coffee looking from one pile to another, thinking I had made a huge mistake. Then it came to me in a blinding flash! With the removal of the soil where the end wall and the side wall of the garden joined was now revealed. If I could
make a small, dry wall that cut off the corner I could then fill it with soil and have a cat toilet!

I set to work and began to build the wall up, starting from the side wall and curving across in a semi-circle to the end wall. As I went along I shovelled soil in, which seemed to keep the wall solid. I didn't pack the soil down but let it settle naturally and removed all the stones and earthworms that I found as I went along. A few hours later I had a rather nice looking cat toilet that was about three feet high and took up very little room. Although I was quite proud of my work I knew it would all be for nothing if the cats didn't actually want to use it.

However, I didn't have long to wait. I went back into the house to wash the soil and dust from my hands and as I was doing so I happened to look up out of the window. There to my utter delight was my eldest cat, Alfie, on top of the new toilet having a good sniff about. I held my breath, waiting to see what he would do next. Slowly he began to dig around in the soil, squatted down and christened my afternoon's work. I never thought I would one day feel so pleased about a cat convenience.

During the course of that first day all my cats seemed to know at once what the cat toilet was for and have used it regularly ever since. I have never found smelly lumps anywhere else in my garden from that day on. Cats like nothing better than freshly turned soil so in between removing their deposits I go down every few days and dig the soil over with a trowel. Also, as the soil began to settle down I added a bit more to build it back up for them.

I'm not suggesting that if you don't own cats, but you have the problem of them using your garden as a toilet, you should build them one to keep them off the begonias. I do however think that cat owners should think about doing this a bit more; after all, we give them a litter tray inside the house, why should *outside* the hou
se be any different? If you have a small garden or a fussy cat, it may even just be that simple; a litter tray. Fill it with either soil, sand, cat litter, or whatever your cat prefers and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your lovable, bundle of fluff is not becoming a nuisance to those living around you.

I hope this idea can work in some way for all you cat owners out there. Cats toileting in other peoples gardens is becoming a growing problem and some do not care for our feline companions. I would much rather have to go out and pick up a bit of poo from my cat toilet than have a fed up neighbour thinking about harming or poisoning my cats; and believe me, it happens.

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