Monday, March 19, 2018

Can You Teach an Old Cat Something New? #chewyinfluencer


This is my sisteroid Sunshine the Cat. She is pretty set in her ways because she is 15 years old. It's okay. She has earned it. She is generally a pretty tidy cat although she occasionally poops on the floor NEAR her litter box. We aren't sure what is going on. Maybe the box is too high? Maybe she can't recognize when she has to poop? Her timing is off? Or maybe she is simply acting out. We don't know. It really is a minor complaint.

One thing that IS NOT so minor is the litter box odor. This is an ongoing thing and it sometimes drives Mommy to frustration.



The litter/sand that works best is very very pricey. It lasts a long time but at $24-26 a month it gets expensive. For the most part it eliminates the odor completely. But Sunshine pees in ONE SPOT all of the time and even the best stuff will fail after a while. Then there is the stuff sold at all of the stores which is half the price. It works okay but in HALF a month you can tell there is a cat in the house the minute you walk in the door. (** Mommy note: The box is cleaned daily but the litter is changed 1-2 weeks, depending on the odor). At the end of a month, Mommy has replaced the litter so much she has to spend more money for more litter -and it ends up being the same or more than the expensive brand and she is doing twice the work.

As luck would have it, Ms. Natalie from Chewy.com asked me if I would be interested in providing a HOODED and special-system-kind of CAT LITTER BOX to Sunshine to try out. Well I thought long and hard on this (like 2 seconds!) and then told Ms. Natalie that SURE, I think Sunshine would like it.

I didn't KNOW if Sunshine would like it. I just know I DON'T like the smell of the LITTER BOX and I am a D-O-G! We dog's live for STINK. So you KNOW it must be bad if I don't like it. Besides, who doesn't like a little privacy now and then?

It arrived 4 days later. Calling all CATS. . . I, Noodles the Pug is happy to announce the Tidy Cats Breeze Cat Litter Box System

It is almost as tall as the table. See the underside of the
table at the top of the picture?


It was in a HUGE BOX. Like almost the size of her Kitty Kondo box, which was huge! I refused to go anywhere NEAR that thing - it was so big it scared me! That is why you see NO ANIMALS in this photo. We were all very intimidated.

Molly hiding under the table WAY away from the box
Then Mommy started pulling things out of the box (Some assembly IS required) and we got a little more curious. After a few HBO words, she had it all set up. It isn't difficult but the directions are all pictures and SOMEHUMAN has issues with that.

Mom had to photoshop Sunshine into this photo because she
would not pose. She claimed it was too private

Mommy did NOT think Sunshine would ever use the box. The pellets are large and Sunshine is picky about the texture of her litter. So Mom followed the suggestions in the literature enclosed with the Tidy Cats Breeze and kept the old litter box in place and put the new one near it. She also stopped cleaning the old box with was really really hard on all of us.

Still Sunshine seemed to be ignoring it. Then Mommy took off the hood. Sunshine is, after all, an old cat and the hood made maneuvering around the box difficult. The NEXT day, Mommy noticed paw prints in the pellets and when she pulled out the drawer, there was evidence of pee.



It took a week and a half for Sunshine to begin using the box regularly and Mommy got rid of the old box.

So what is the BREEZE system? Well Tidy Cats developed these pellets that allow the urine to flow through it. The Breeze cat box is three parts:


  • The hood, which we discussed
  • The tray which holds the pellets and had a an open grid in the bottom to allow liquid to flow through and solid waste to collect on top
  • The drawer which hold the pad that collects the urine and makes clean up very easy

Because the pellets do not soak up the urine, there is no ammonia smell. The surface stays relatively dry so the cat is happier AND the pellets are large so they do not go flying all over the room when Sunshine exits the box. Solid waste can easily be scooped up and disposed of.

NOTE: Mommy has a bit of an issue with the abundance of plastic that is tossed into the landfill from using the pads. She would like them to come up with an alternative that would be disposable but also decompose-able. The pellets are clay and will degrade over time. But until there is a reasonable alternative, she will continue to use the Breeze system as Sunshine is happy with it.

And Mommy did the math to see of it is economical compared with the other litter/sand methods she has tried. We established they run $26 a month on average. The Tidy Cat Breeze System cost break down is like this

The box, lid, scoop, sample of pads and 3.5 lbs of pellets = $44.99 on Chewy.com
A package of 10 pads (one lasts a week or so depending on number of CATS) = $12.10 on Chewy.com
A 7 lb bag of pellets good for 1-2 month before needing replacing = $15.47 on Chewy.com

So in a year (and based on Sunshine's usage only. . . each cat is different) the system will cost a total of $231.67 versus $312.00 for the other litter/sand systems. That is a pretty good savings. The BONUS is NO CAT SMELL!

So Mommy's happy. . . Sunshine is happy . . . and most importantly, I am HAPPY.

Casa de Noodles gives the Tidy Cats Breeze Cat Litter Box System THIRTY. . . 30. . . hands/paws/claws UP for living up to its hype. We are so much happier without that kitty smell.

** Chewy.com provided us with ONE Tidy Cats Breeze Cat Litter System to use and evaluate. All opinions and mathematical-ing  are ours and ours alone.We were not paid to say anything.

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