You’re Setting Up Your Litter Box All Wrong!

You set out to just put
out something definitiveabout litter boxes and sort
of Litter Box Etiquette 101. And it’s just like the
Alice in Wonderlandrabbit hole just like
filled with poop instead,because you’re just
constantly digging and diggingand digging. There’s more stuff. There’s more stuff. OK. Well, we’re going to continue,
because there is nevera last word on litter boxes. Let’s catify the world. Come on. So the last time we were
talking about really Litter Box101, things you may not
have known about the wayyour cat sees their territory
vis-a-vis their litter boxesand what you can do to help
secure their territory,make it more appropriate for
them to use a litter box,and at the end of the
day make you happy. Let’s have some general
rules on board here. Number one, that old
adage is actually right. If you have two cats, you want
two boxes, plus one, threeboxes. Three cats, four boxes. One cat, two boxes. That makes sure that the
cats can territoriallyidentify the entire home,
so put those boxes out. That leads me to the next thing. Put them out. I don’t want to see
you saying to me,I have three litter boxes,
Jackson, just like you said. And all three of
those boxes are sideby side in a corner
in the garage. You have to put
them in places thatare– don’t kill me–
socially important places. How many people have said
this, cats want privacy?Hmm. So you’re saying
that your cat wantsto go into a cabinet that’s
disguised as a litter box. That’s ridiculous. If your cat had it
her way, she wouldbe outside pooping and
peeing in a bush rightoutside your door to
mark that territory. She doesn’t need privacy. You do. You don’t want to be taking
a look at your cat peeand pooping around the house. And what happens then, you’ll
put them in the mud room. You’ll put them behind
the washing machine. You’ll put them under
the car in the garage. You’ll put them where you
don’t have to look at them. And folks, I am telling you,
if you want to solve litter boxproblems in your home,
make the opposite choicethat your aesthetic it
is telling you to make. If cat is insecure and marking
certain areas because theydon’t feel secure about that
area, putting a litter boxthere is really important,
because at the very leastyou can praise them for
doing something right,as opposed to damning them
for doing something wrong. And the next thing is, I put
a little box in the diningroom or the living
room or my bedroom,just like you asked me to do. I resent the hell out of it. But I did it. What’s the next thing you do?You plug in air fresheners
around the thing. You deodorize the hell
out of that litter box. That drives cats away. So no plug-in deodorizers,
no sprinkle-on deodorizers. I don’t really believe
in scented litter at all. If you consistently scoop your
cat’s stuff out of the litterbox, you’re not going to have
to worry about that smell. Now I want to bring
up one more thingabout preventing
litter box problems. Catification is a big thing. What is catification?We’ve talked about
this one before. It is environmental
enrichment for cats,but also environmental
enrichmentthat doesn’t preclude
your aesthetic sense. Yes, you can have things
that work for your catsand work for you the same time. So let’s take for
instance, the litter boxthat everybody seems to have. It’s a litter box where
you’ve got a big hood on it. And then what you do is you
take the opening to the hoodand you face it to the wall,
because for some reasonhumans do not like
looking at litter. Wherever they go in, they got
to know they can get out again. There has got to
be an escape route. So if they are in that litter
box with that hole facingthe wall and another
cat or a dog or a childcomes up behind
them, they’re surelynot going to go
back to a box wherethey get ambushed and cornered. So when you’re looking
at litter boxesand how you place
them around the house,you’ve got to make sure
your cats have exit routeseverywhere. A lot of cats have almost a
post-traumatic stress reactionto the litter box
where either theywere ambushed by another cat or
it used to hurt to pee there. And what you’re
going to need to dois start collecting litter
boxes that look and feeland nothing like the
litter box that you’vebeen using, just because we
can build a new association. Does that mean get
rid of the old one?No. It means add another one. If you have a big,
square, deep box,you go for something very
shallow, something round,a different type of
litter altogether. And you put it
around the house, letthem choose where I want to go,
what kind of litter I prefer,what’s the depth I like. And then you can slowly start
replacing the boxes thatwere offensive to your
cat to begin with. There’s so much
more to talk about. But here’s the exciting part. I don’t think there’s any way
we can encapsulate this alland me just talking to
a camera and talkingto you through my camera. I think it’s time to
bring you into it. So the next time we
have a Google Hangout,which is coming up
really soon, we’regoing to take the questions
that most are asking. And I know I’m
missing something. And you’re going to fill
me in on what I’m missing. So down in the
comments section below,start writing your
questions for me. I want them to be in general. I don’t want to hear, I
have cat who dot, dot, dot,because the question is
going to be this long. And I’ve got to tell you,
folks, it’s not going to read. I want to have questions
that everybody can relate to. And I will try to
answer them all. And then, if you actually
watch the description below,it’ll give you
instructions on howto get involved with the
Hangout, how you and me can goa little mano a mano live
in front of everybodythrough the magic of
Google and hanging out. You can find me on Twitter
and Facebook and YouTube. Obviously, you found me there. My website, jacksongalaxy. com. You can find me just about
in any of the social medianooks and crannies and find out
when that Hangout is happening,and also when we’ve got
new “My Cat From Hell,”which, by the way,
August 23rd, new episodesof “My Cat From
Hell,” season five. Until the next
time we talk, justkeep your head in the litter
box and keep your hands outof the litter box. Think inside the box. Think outside the box. Just get more boxes. How about that?All light. All love. All mojo to you. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.