Halle-pew-jah

As in, glory be!, the stink appears to be gone.

I went online last night and got a number of suggestions about how to keep Skittles from piddling all over the house. Because the litter box was now anathema to her completely - for a good while, she was pooping in it, but would absolutely not piddle there. But now #2 was also beginning to show up in odd corners. The website had a number of suggestions - the basic jist being, "Make her litterbox as attractive as possible, and all other areas as unattractive as possible, for peeing in."

One of the tricks for making a place unattractive is spreading tinfoil on the ground. So I did - there are now to bands of it that run the length of the floor under our picture window and behind the wood stove.

And since cats often like to scratch immediately after using the litterbox, we put an old bath mat next to it.

And we closed her in there over the course of the day, while Janneke took a few minutes this afternoon to try to find the last piece of the puzzle: kitty litter that she would like. This stuff we'd been using is pretty rough, compared to the strictly clay-based one we'd started out with - and which we'd not been able to find again. The stuff we replaced it with is made from corn and is very granular. So as soon as Janneke arrived at home with it, we put it in the box. And the need was great - because as soon as I had gotten home, I had settled in to mop the areas downstairs where she had done #1 and #2. Neither was anywhere near the litterbox.

Once the new litter was in, I found the kitten and brought her down and placed her in the box. She moved as if to leap away, which was what she had been doing every previous time I'd put her there, but I held her, and took her paws and moved them so she could feel, really feel, that this was different. And it sank in - she suddenly looked down at it and began to relax, then to sniff it. Knowing that cats prefer not to be watched in that circumstance, I scampered around the corner and watched with just one eyeball peering around the doorjamb.

As she settled, turned, squatted, and peed.

I bounded up the stairs and leapt into the dining room, fists high, face jubilant; Janneke immediately knew what had happened, and we embraced in the middle of the room as the camera swung around us and the fireworks exploded everywhere.

I no longer look menacingly at the poor little thing - I shoot her only loving looks.

And the best thing about this kitty litter, apart form its acceptability to the cat?

It clumps!!

Whoah - great video to share, here, apropos of nothing. Some find it creepy. We atheists find it heart-warming.


Mwahahahahahaaaaaaa!