Fats Cats and Litter Boxes

To put it bluntly and honestly, my cats are, well, fat. My oldest as well as the biggest at 15 years old, Tiger, is 16 pounds, down from 22 pounds at his largest. Besides the health issues he's been dealing with due to his weight (I'll save that one for a different post - I swear, sometimes it feels as though I'm running a kitty nursing home), we encountered another issue: finding a moderately priced litter box that he could fit into. He's really tall, and has what I like to lovingly refer to as "power pees", where I can only imagine that he saves it until he's bursting at the seams, then releases it as quickly and forcefully as possible. Because of this, he tends to pee over the litter box if the lid is not on, and so forcefully when it is on that it flows freely through the seam, leaving a puddle behind and eventually underneath the box.

I swear, only my cats.

So, after having many eye-rolling teenage employees at various pet stores look at me with that "I hope I never turn out to be like her" glance as I thoroughly inspected each latch and depth on each litter box they had in stock (I entertained the idea of taking Tiger's bum-to-floor measurement and bringing measuring tape with me), and if by rare chance, I found one that was suitable, turning it down because I was not willing to spend $50 on a cat toilet (I'm nothing if not cheap), I gave up. I gave up and spent another couple of years scrubbing the varnish off the floors and the paint off the walls around the now symbol of my failure: the litter box. I thought to myself each and every time: "It shouldn't be this hard. There's got to be someone else out there with a tall, pain-in-the-ass, power-peeing cat". I would then, of course, immediately go and snuggle up with Tiger, guilt clouding over me, all the while telling him he's well worth the trouble and thankful once again that he cannot speak English. It was a vicious cycle.

Then one day, at the local hardware store, I was smacked in the face by a display of plastic totes. Tall enough to cover him right up, short enough for all of them to jump in and out of, and all for $4.99!

Insane with glee, I paid for those totes while chatting up the teenage cashier. And as I walked out the door, I looked back to see her eyes roll upward.

They've worked perfectly, and without a lid, I remember to clean them more often.

Sometimes, it's the little things.