High Tech Gadgetry, Zaia-Ka Style

In my youth, one of my chores inspired my lyric misunderstanding of the song "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash. I heard, "Cherie don't like it. Not the catbox, not the catbox" and thought they wrote it just for me. I hadn't lived with cats since I lived at home before college, but I knew I would live with them again. And now, I have Ka and Zaia.

But let me back up a little and get to the point. Two years ago, when I was daydreaming about having cats again, I remembered my "Not the Catbox" song and researched possible ways that the 21st century might have been brought to the litterbox. That was when I discovered the Litter-Robot being raved over at the Automatic Litterbox Forum (if you don't think there's a forum for just about any topic, rest assured, there is one). Intrigued, I headed over to the company website to see how it worked, and why I should believe it would be reliable. The product itself is essentially a barrel on its side atop a waste bin. The barrel holding the litter, upon detecting cat usage, would roll, sift out the good litter, and continue rolling until the clumped litter could be dumped out into the waste bin underneath it. Then it would roll back, putting the unused litter back in place and ready for the next visit. Thus, scooping would be done automatically, requiring only that the waste bin be dumped out every few days or so. The smell, hopefully, would be confined to the waste bin only. Cats, being cats, could still find ways to foil this ingenious system, not the least of which would be refusing to use it. This was by far the biggest obstacle according to the litterbox forum. But I was intrigued (and not a little jealous that I hadn't thought of the idea myself). But I didn't have cats then.

Now I do.

Since Ka and Zaia are still kittens, I figured it would be easier to get them acclimated to a fancy new litterbox than if they were older. So it was a red letter day when I pushed the order button. And with much anticipation, I saw that it would be delivered on the Friday before Thankgiving.

We predicted that Ka, as our resident adventurer, would be first to check it out, use it, and thenceforth try to figure out how it worked. Zaia would be a little slower to take to it, but once Ka experienced it and didn't yowl in displeasure, she would be fine with it.

And so it arrived:

The box was huge. Ka was with me when I opened it and put it on the floor to have a look. It was still huge. He didn't seem too perturbed about it. He sniffed all the parts. It wasn't until I carried it up the stairs to their bathroom that it began to dawn on him that he ought to pay more attention to it. Zaia was with us by then and she sat farther off to watch the goings on. I moved their current litterbox to the side and set up the Litter-Robot in its place. It took both Lee and I to read through the instructions and put litter in it. Once it was ready to go, we unplugged it so as to not freak the cats out too much. According to the company's suggestion, we left the current litterbox in place, but didn't bother cleaning it. We put a clump of the old litter into the new litterbox to give them the right smell of an idea.

Both had a habit of having to use the litterbox the second we dug around the litter to clean it out. So we scooped around in the new litterbox to get their attention. To our surprise, it was Zaia that led the way. She poked her head into the old litterbox, sniffed disdainfully and stepped up into the new one and used it. Ka was not one to be left out and crawled in after her, relishing in the depth of the new litterbox with apparent glee. Said glee was evident in the rain of litter making it out of the box as Ka flung it about, rearranged the clean litter, dug to the bottom to find out what it was made of. All seemed to be going well so far. That is, until we cycled it sometime later in their presence for the first time. Ka fluffed himself up and backed up. Zaia ran to their bed and hung out there for a few moments. She hopped down and made it halfway back to the litterbox by the time the cycle ended. A soothing pet for Ka soon after the litterbox cycle sent him all-paws into the air. No, that didn't go well at all.

The next time Ka went to the litterbox, he went into his old box, out of it, sniffed at the Litter-Robot's step, then ultimately went in his old box. Sigh. But it was only day 2. We had 58 days left in the company's money back trial period. We left the old box in place over the next couple of days and only cycled it while the cats were distracted with their feather toy so they could get used to the motor sound of the litterbox cycling (which sounded eerily like their nemesis, the Roomba). During the week, we soon graduated to cycling the Litter-Robot while they played within sight of it. They would perk up and show interest in the box, but played on. By Tuesday night, when we were gathering up the trash for trash day, we decided to keep the Litter-Robot on supervised cycling only and remove the old litterbox. At the start of Thanksgiving weekend, we left the new litterbox on automatic mode during the day and turned it off at night. By Friday, we were leaving the box on 24 hours a day.

But now, on Sunday, we have a new challenge. Ka has gotten over his initial wariness and is in full investigation mode. As soon as he hears the motor going, he trots upstairs to watch it. He has since discovered that stepping on its entrance step will stop the cycling momentarily, a handy safety feature. It also allows him to go inside and see what's different if the barrel is upside down (there's no litter and there's some sort of grate to stand on). Unfortunately, it also starts moving again 15 seconds after he stops it mid-cycle unless he triggers the sensor again. We have not yet come home to a thoroughly confused robot, but I foresee that event in the near future. Hopefully it won't be long after that until the Litter-Robot finally becomes their regular old, boring litterbox.