Tidy Cat Breeze - I wasted my money

[meow meow]

It has been three weeks now and my 2 year old neutered male has still not used the new box for pee or poop. I have them set up side by side. I have tried sprinkling the pellets in his old box, removing the sides from the new box and I even created an "obstacle course" of sorts where he had to walk through the new box to get to the old. He walks right through it to get to the old box.

I am figuring he is just clueless about the pellet litter.

Can anyone suggest anything else to try before I put this box and supplies on Craigslist?

PS: My cat has never had inappropriate elimination problems and I am too chicken to just take away the old box.

 

[wingss2fly]

I would pull the old box out, while I was home to watch. And I would watch. It has always worked for me. I just remove the old and drop the new.
Good luck to you!
K.

 

[missymotus]

Originally Posted by wingss2fly

I would pull the old box out, while I was home to watch

That would be my suggestion too. And leave some of his 'business' in the new box when you take the other away.

 

[thecatcoach]

I'm questioning the Tidy Cat Breeze system. First of all, from everything I've read on it (which isn't much), it seems that there is a pad that catches the urine and is changed every week or so. Even if us humans can not smell the urine, cats can. Cats do not like to use dirty boxes and from the description of this system, the box probably will smell dirty to the cat.
Personally, I wouldn't use any kind of litter box system that gathers urine. From my research into it, it sounds like there could be potential litter boxes challenges resulting from it's use.

If you have to scoop the solids anyway, why not scoop everything in a regular box that the cat is used to?

Marilyn Krieger, CCBC
www.thecatcoach.com

 

[enuja]

My cats really like it, and it has the advantage of having essentially no dust (I have an asthmatic cat). I don't think everyone should rush out to switch, especially if they like using clumping clay litter, but it is a good alternative.

Everyone always says "clean up anywhere your cat has urinated in the past, because if they can still smell it, they'll think of it as a good place to urinate". Why does that suddenly stop being true of a litter box?

I know cats also like a clean box, and while the pad at the bottom does store urine, it stores it in a way that is much, much less smelly than using a non-clumping litter and changing the whole box once a week, or even considerably more often. Marilyn Kriege, you have, on this forum, recommended non-clumping clay litter for kittens, and that system does "store" urine, so you have recommended systems that store urine.

I think that the breeze is better than any other alternative to clumping clay litter, and my cats love it. For urine, they prefered it to my old box (which was Yesterday's News because of my cat's asthma).

Most relevantly, since meow meow's cat hasn't used the box yet, that's not the problem in this case. The problem is a failure to transition. As meow meow knows, I don't think she's mixed enough of the breeze litter into her old box. Slowly, slowly mixing the new litter into the old litter is always a good way to help a cat transition litters. My cats even tried to paw the breeze over into the old box to cover before they started using the breeze.

Maybe meow meow's cat won't like the breeze, maybe he'll use it just for urine and not for feces (which seems common, maybe just early in transitions, maybe for some cats forever), but the current problem is that he simply doesn't know that this new box is a litter box.

For the larger question of whether meow meow (and anyone else) should switch yet, the advantages of The Breeze are ...
1) no huge volumes of litter (it's too heavy for some people, and others have concerns about environmental aspects of large amounts of waste)
2) functionally dust-free (there is some dust in the litter pellet bag, but that sifts right down to the urine pad and cat's don't have to breathe any airbore dust as far as I can tell)
3) You don't have to scoop urine pellets
4) It really doesn't track.
5) cats won't eat it and have health problems from it

Of course, anyone who switches now is an early adopter; we'll just have to wait a few years and see if cats using The Breeze develop "elimination problems" more than cats on other systems. I really think it makes sense, at least for now, to mostly compare the breeze to other alternatives instead of comparing it to clumping clay litter, a system that works for most cats in most cases.

 

[thecatcoach]

Yes, I, Marilyn Krieger, do recommend non-clumping litters for kittens. The reason I do is because kittens can eat litter, and one doesn't want the litter causing obstructions. The boxes should be cleaned frequently. Also, since the kitten boxes are small, they are very easy to dump and replace with clean litter.

Cats do not like litter boxes that are dirty and smell like urine. One of the biggest reasons for cats to not use their boxes is because they aren't clean enough. A couple of reasons for this is because a dirty box has the potential of attracting a predator and/or scaring away a potential food source.

I have not tried the Tidy Cat Breeze, because of my concerns about urine collecting on a pad. I do test litters and am very willing to test this new system, if Tidy Cat would like to send me one. I do use Tidy Cat (non scented) litter for one of my cats. It's the only one he likes and it's a really good litter.

That being said, there are many different litters out there that are very effective. Many cats love Feline Pine pellets, they are used to it and do well with it. Feline Pine offers a litter box system that is made up of 3 boxes. One of the boxes is a sifter, sifts the sawdust and urine through to the bottom layer. Since these are pellets, they are also dust free. Feline Pine also has a clumping version as well which does track. Some cats do well with the pellets, others don't.

Whatever litter you have, when transitioning a cat to a new litter, it should be done very slowly, adding a cup at a time of the new litter into the old box. Also, make sure that the new box isn't located in an area where a cat can feel cornered, such as a closet or a bathtub. And, the box shouldn't be covered.

Marilyn Krieger, CCBC

 

[kitten_smitten]

Also, make sure that the new box isn't located in an area where a cat can feel cornered, such as a closet or a bathtub. And, the box shouldn't be covered

Covered as in a dome cover?

 

[mzjazz2u]

Marilyn,

I've been using the Tidy Cat Breeze system since it came out and my cats prefer it for peeing. I still have one box set up with clumping litter and they only poo in that one occassionally. The breeze has been a big hit in my home! That said, I realize that it isn't going to be for every cat. Just as any other litter.