Litter mats

tdonline

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My apartment is carpeted and sad to say there's tracked litter everywhere.  I use a mat next to the litter box but it's obviously not catching enough of the litter off my cats' paws.  A few minutes ago, one of was cleaning her paw in the living room and when she opened up her paw, a sprinkle of litter rained down.  Enough!

Is there a mat that will open up their paws to draw out the litter and yet be comfortable enough for them to use?  The litter box is under the sink in a small bathroom.  I would likely place the mat at the bathroom door.  

Thanks!
 

orientalslave

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I've traied various 'low track' litters over the years and I always end up sleeping on some - one of my cats likes to get IN bed with me which is mostly rather enjoyable for both of us.  It would be wonderful if all this 'no track' stuff actually worked but personally I've concluded it's pie in the sky and I need to either put up with it or clean more often. 
 

melesine

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Best thing I ever did was switch to tidy cat breeze. No more sandy clay litter all over the place, including my bed and it's made the litter boxes almost smell free. I tried litter mats and my cats just jumped over them, they hated walking on those things. 
 

pugsanonymous

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Try fluffy bathroom rugs! I tried a tracking mat once and found it almost useless. For years now I've used bathroom rugs. They catch a *lot* of the excess litter, are easy to shake out to keep clean, can be laundered whenever you want, come in lots of sizes and are easy to color coordinate with your existing carpet. I make sure the rug sticks out about a foot and a half past the front of the litter box. Of course they're always going to track some througout the house so I use a cordless hand-vac once a day to clean up any excess.
 
 
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tdonline

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Pugs, I'll give a bathroom mat a shot!  I'm going to find the fluffiest one possible.  

BTW, I use wheat litter and yes, it's gross to see on my bed.  
 
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tdonline

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Best thing I ever did was switch to tidy cat breeze. No more sandy clay litter all over the place, including my bed and it's made the litter boxes almost smell free. I tried litter mats and my cats just jumped over them, they hated walking on those things. 
I looked in the breeze system.  Very interesting.  Next time I'm at PS, I'm going to take a good at this.  Thanks.
 

melesine

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I looked in the breeze system.  Very interesting.  Next time I'm at PS, I'm going to take a good at this.  Thanks.
Amazon has the best prices, especially on the refills of the pellets and pads. I have it on subscribe and save and they auto ship them to me every couple months. 
 

otto

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I use these door mats I get at Lowes. They are called "rib it" I think. They really grab the litter off the feet. Since I started using them I have NO litter tracked on the stairs or upstairs, at all. My litter boxes are on a platform, they jump down onto the mats, then there are three or four along the little way down there, before they get to the stairs.

Lowes for some reason doesn't have them on their website but Home Depot does

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-25e...053&langId=-1&keyword=door+mats&storeId=10051

However, the ones at home depot are "Made in China". The ones at Lowes are "Made in USA", so I get them at Lowes.

They have large ones too, but those would be too awkward for me to work with, cleaning and such. The little ones are very handy. I shake them out every week, and wash them every couple of months, or sooner if Mazy pukes on one. I keep two sets of four, so when one set is being washed, I can have the other set in use. I replace them once a year.
 
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tdonline

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Otto, are those mats anything like the mats sold by Petsmart?  These mats are described as "ribbed."  I've seen them in the store and the ribs don't seem to be very distinct or high.  http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10928020&lmdn=Cat

For whatever reason, the Home Depot link keeps freezing my browser so I can't take a good look at it.  I'm not near a HD or Lowe's so I'll have to check out my local hardware store to see if they have something similar.
 
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tdonline

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Mel, my overriding concern is switching my cats to hard pellets.  They seem to be very comfortable with the wheat and they love to dig, bury and scratch.   They did use pine at the shelter but after a few months home, I switched to wheat because I hated the sawdust.  
 

otto

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Otto, are those mats anything like the mats sold by Petsmart?  These mats are described as "ribbed."  I've seen them in the store and the ribs don't seem to be very distinct or high.  http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10928020&lmdn=Cat

For whatever reason, the Home Depot link keeps freezing my browser so I can't take a good look at it.  I'm not near a HD or Lowe's so I'll have to check out my local hardware store to see if they have something similar.
No that's not the same thing. I can't understand why the Lowes site doesn't list them, I wish they did, because those are the ones I get, they are made in USA. The ones I buy are small, 18 " by 27 " and they are $2.97 each.

Here's my set up: Litter boxes on platforms at the end, then four of the small ribbed door mats



Close up of the rug (I didn't notice Queen Eva when I was taking the picture :lol3: she is such a Super Model)
 
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tdonline

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Thanks Otto, the pix (and the supermodel) really helped.  
 

just mike

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My apartment is carpeted and sad to say there's tracked litter everywhere.  I use a mat next to the litter box but it's obviously not catching enough of the litter off my cats' paws.  A few minutes ago, one of was cleaning her paw in the living room and when she opened up her paw, a sprinkle of litter rained down.  Enough!

Is there a mat that will open up their paws to draw out the litter and yet be comfortable enough for them to use?  The litter box is under the sink in a small bathroom.  I would likely place the mat at the bathroom door.  

Thanks!
See a lot of interesting ideas here.  I've had good luck with one of those door mat type things from Home Depot.  It's the black kind with little ridges in it.  Almost like a rug but it isn't.  I used to use the mats from places like Petsmart but they didn't help me at all.  I like these.
 

riccadawn

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I actually found a "roll" of thick black ribbed plastic at Target - it's looong, I call it my litterbox runway. So that stretches out about 5 feet in front of my litter box. And then right in front of the litter box (on top of the runway), I have a very heavy duty "welcome mat" type thing that you'd have outside your front door. It has lots and lots of little rubber teeth sticking up. I can imagine many cats might hate it and I've heard of cats jumping right over litter mats and not using them, but my 3 don't seem to mind it at all. Best of all, both the rugs/mats I use are just plastic so I simply pick them up, hold them out over the deck and shake them out. No washing or vacuuming or buying a new one. 

I do imagine the fluffy bath mat idea would probably be a pretty good idea, buuut one of my cats loves to play with those things and I know she'd never let it be. She crawls underneath them and wraps herself up in them and pulls out all the little individual strands of "fluff" and I find them throughout the house. All this happens in the time it takes me to get a shower (otherwise the cats don't go in the bathroom) so I can't imagine the damage she would do to one if she had 24/7 access.
 
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tdonline

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While looking at rugs and mats at Home Goods, I came across grass shower mats.  The blades were super soft and I could see the blades would open up my cats' little paws.  And they do.  The mat does a great job at capturing litter from the paws.

The problem?  Even though the mat was super soft and comfy, it freaked out my cats.  One of them used it with some reservation but the other one was really afraid of it.  Though they are such good litter box users, they did not go outside.  They were doing ninja moves to get in and out of the box.  I gave it a few days for them to get used to it but after seeing one of them crying before leaping into the box from the toilet...I gave up.  My poor babies.  I was bummed because the mat worked well otherwise...

Then I thought about wrapping the mat with a thin towel.  Bingo.  Within minutes, one of the cats was nesting comfortably on the toweled mat.  Way too comfortably!   The litter mat shouldn't be a resting spot.  I see stray litter on the towel so it's still effective.  Plus, I'm using cheap white Ikea towels, it's easy for me to see the litter.  I can tell right away if the box has been used and I can easily pick up the towel and throw all stray litter back in the box.  The Petsmart mat I used has litter stuck in crevices I can't remove.

Btw, my local hardware store sells the ribbed mats--for $13-16 each.  Must be the really good version...
 
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emilymaywilcha

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I have small washable non-slip area rugs that can be rolled up. Before I moved, one of them was in front of the litterboxes. They are much better for walking barefoot than rubber mats.
 
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