Does Arm & Hammer "Slide" Cat Litter Live up to its Promise?

I was driving to Target the other day when I heard a radio commercial for a new cat litter "Slide". I was lamenting the fact that the Garfield cat litter that I loved so much because it came so cleanly off the side of the litter box had deteriorated to the point that it it barely clumps at all and very quickly the litter box started to smell like a urinal. I was wondering why they weren't making a clay litter that did that... Then the commercial happened.

Okay, it wasn't like I had that thought in my head as the commercial came on, but I had been thinking it that day, so when I heard the commercial as I was headed to the store where they sell litter, I thought I should probably look into that... and if they have a coupon I'll totally buy it.

Well.. it had a coupon! $3 off the box you were currently buying and an additional $3 for the next box. So I bought it.

I bought the Multi-cat version first. It had a faint floral scent. I have a very sensitive nose, so I can smell it. I am sure my husband couldn't. I then bought the Odor Control variety, and that has almost a citrus/lemon scent to it. Again it is pretty faint, but I notice it when I'm scooping and on my cats if they have just visited the box.

Now, for the big test, did it work as advertised? Did I give it away by saying I bought a second box?
The first photo was after I started scooping. It is interesting that the product lightens when exposed to air. If you look at the first photo you can see near the clumps a faint line, that is because I started scooping before I thought take photos.

So the first go around they didn't quite "slide" off the box. They did come off easily when I knocked them with the scoop, and they came off the side fairly cleanly - not perfectly clean but not bad. I wondered if they were fresh and would come off easier if they were a little older and drier.

The next time I went to scoop, I just tipped the box up, and everything slid right off. Pretty impressive.

But how would it hold up to 'extreme use'? I held off scooping the box for a day and a half (I only intended a day, but I became distracted) I will say, I was once again impressed. The clumps didn't break, there wasn't a lot of left over bits or fragments after scooping. (ignore the sides of the box, Jack likes to stand to pee)

What is also pretty impressive about this litter is that it has no dust. I noticed it when I poured the first box out, and here is a video of my pouring the second box.

Carma Poodale recently did a review, and she found out that they add plant based materials to the clay litter to get it to clump like that. She also links to a couple of coupons that are out there.

When I bought my second box, I found a rebate code to get a box free. Go to
InmarRebates.com/AHLitter submit the rebate. Once there select CDCATLT13 and you'll see the different products you can get free. I like that you can submit it right on line if you want, or if you want to print off the paperwork and mail it in you can do that too.

One other down side (aside from the very light scent which is far lighter that a lot of 'unscented' litters) is that it is difficult to open. I could punch the tab in easy enough, but pulling it up to keep the box open was quite difficult, far more so than it had to be. I wish they would find a better way to do that. This is something you have to deal with in most boxed litters, so this isn't anything unique.

Yup, this litter has won me over and I am using it in Muffin's box. We still have a boat load of litter left over from the Black Friday Sales in 2014 & 2015 which will most likely last us until BF 2017, but if not I will probably buy more of this for the main litter boxes as it is fairly price competitive with other clay litters.

#chewyinfluencer Boxiecat Cat Litter - a review

Fleurp absolutely adores the fact that we are a part of the Chewy.com Influencer program. She knows that when that box shows up she is bound to get treats, because that how it has gone for her in the past. Unfortunately for her, this month we decided to go with the Boxiecat litter that was offered.

As part of the influencer program, we receive free product in exchange for an honest review of that product on our blog. All content of this post is our own.

Fleurp was exceedingly disappointed that the box contained sixteen pounds of litter and not cat treats, but she got over it when I gave her some treats later.

Boxiecat claims that it is an all natural, unscented clumping clay litter that is 99.9% dust free that clumps instantly, scoops easily, resists tracking and it stays ultra-clean even after weeks of scooping. Pretty impressive claims, but how would it hold up? Our house uses wading pools for cat boxes, so this little bag wasn't going to go far in our main litter box area, but because of Muffin's recent issues we have put a litter box upstairs for her.

I dumped out the litter that was in there and emptied the bag into the box. I was pleased how little dust there was. So often litters claim to be dust free and then throw up a huge cloud when you dump them out. I won't say there wasn't any dust, but it was pretty minimal.

Muffin thought this litter was well worth using, immediately, as in 'get out I'm busy' immediately. Actually, she really doesn't care if I watch her pee.

My cats are lazy and if they don't have to walk downstairs they don't. Having a box upstairs is a bit of a battle to keep it clean enough to keep Muffin happy and not have the box flooded with seven cats trying to use it. We often lose. After one day of use this is what the box looks like. Don't forget, a lot of it was covered up too.

I was pretty impressed how well this litter cleans up. When scooping, the 'clumps' my cats produce might not all stay together, because my cats tend to spread their pee around so we end up with strips instead of clumps, but when it breaks it doesn't break into a number of small pieces which means it cleans up easily. This is what the box looked like after I scooped it.

We did have some tracking of the litter, and most of it was contained right near the box, but some of it was across the bathroom floor causing us to sweep on a regular basis. It was better than some other litters, so I think it lives up to the 'resists tracking' claim.  The bag didn't last us very long, but that is because we have seven cats using it, but it did last right to the very last. Because it cleaned up so well, each time I scooped I had a very clean new looking box, even when there wasn't a lot of litter left. It was 'good to the very last drop' if you will.

The cons? The price. at $17 for 16 pounds, it is one of the more expensive litters out there. other than that this would be high up on my list of litters to use. I absolutely would not turn them down of Boxiecat wanted to offer me a lifetime supply of this.

Thank you again to Chewy for this opportunity. Fleurp is looking forward to next month and is hoping that we go back to getting things she can eat.

Garfield Cat Litter - a review

Update March 2017: I recently purchased this product on sale at PetSmart. I was thrilled to find it and I ordered 12 bags of it. When I put the product in the litterbox I was nearly instantly disappointed with it. The first time I scooped the box the litter clump fell nearly apart and the individual grains went everywhere. I thought maybe my cat had just gone and it didn't have time to gel, so I waited a bit before scooping again, and again all of the clumps broke apart leaving behind a lot of used litter. Very quickly the box started to stink of old used urine soaked litter. I had to throw it all out and I returned the rest of the product.  What is so sad about this, is how good it was. It also bothers me that you have to open at least two bags of the litter to get full coverage of an adult sized litter box; you won't know if it works for you without a considerable investment (because the litter is still not cheap)

I'm sorry to say, I no longer recommend this product.

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Back in February, I was trolling Twitter and Facebook for posts about Global Pet Expo. I was trying to live vicariously through the people who were lucky enough to be there. One post caught my eye, it was about a new cat product.

Garfield Cat Litter, of all things. A "celebrity" sponsored cat litter? really? All I could think of was 'what a gimmick', but I was trolling to learn about new products, so off I went to learn about this.

On their website, one of the first things they promote is that it is plant based. This is important to a lot of people who are unhappy with the idea of using clay for their cat litter. Personally, I have been very disappointed by 'natural' and 'plant based' litter so I immediately became skeptical this would be any good.

I did like the claim that it was chemical-free. They also make the claim that they add no fragrances or chemicals. I am not a fan scented litter, so to me, this is a very good thing. I also liked that it is white. Cats with irritated bladders end up with a lot of blood in their urine and this can be hard to see with regular clay litters.

I kept searching the website to figure out what it was made of and sadly it is not listed there anywhere, but if you ask them, they tell you that it is made out of cassava root and corn.

One thing that is on the website is a link to request a sample. That impressed me.  I contacted the company. I explained who I was and that I would like to try the litter.  The woman that responded told me she was still at the expo but she would get some out to me when she returned.

Just recently, May 22nd to be exact, I was in a position to put the litter out for the foster kittens.  They sent me two bags. One bag filled up a kitten sized litter box by a couple of inches. It seemed much more than was necessary in that little box but I didn't think it would be enough to fill up a regular sized litter box and I wasn't prepared to try to put some back in the bag.

The new litter garnered some interest initially but no actual use. I'm not sure why they were put off by the new litter initially but they preferred to play in it vs answering the call of nature. I had put that box in the spot where they were used to going before and I put the box that was there where the other litter boxes were. I guess it was just different enough for them to be skeptical of it.

A day and a half later I realized that had changed.

I had wondered if they were having an issue with how deep the litter was and was in the process of separating it out into two boxes when I realized we had clumps.  Pretty impressive clumps too.

One thing I really liked was how cleanly the clumps came off the bottom of the box. With regular clay litter when you remove a clump there is usually a dusty clay circle where the clump was, this had none of that. The more I scooped, the more I realized it has a slightly different texture and thus a bit of a different sound when I scoop, almost a bit like playing with sand beads.

Time and time again, the pee clumps came up off the bottom of the box easily and did not leave a trace. Sadly, the kittens seemed to refuse to poop in the box. I couldn't imagine why. I was holding off on doing this review hoping that they would change their minds; eight days later they finally did.

I will admit to you that I really really like this litter.  It is dust free and it clumps really well. It is nice and easy to maintain. I lament that they don't make it is bigger packages so I could start using it for The Crew. Hopefully, in time, they will and it will be available to purchase at your local stores instead of just at Amazon.

Usually, when I do a review I like to add in anything that can be seen as a negative. Personally, I learn more about a product by what went wrong for people than what worked. When I see 100% glowing reviews I assume they are paid ads and I don't take them as seriously.  The only "negative" is the kittens took some time getting used to it which is to be completely expected when changing up something so important to a cat. I suppose I could list the fact that it only comes in five-pound packages and that it is only sold on Amazon as negatives, but if you only have one cat and you have Amazon Prime, you might think that is awesome.

What do you think? Is this something you might want to try?

A few new to me products that I tried

I have had quite a few products stack up at the house that I wanted to blog about, today we have non-sponsored right-off-the-shelf items I thought looked interesting that I wanted to talk about.

First up is Simply Nourish Casserole cat food. Simply Nourish is a PetSmart brand of food.

I am not 100% sure where this product came from. It might have been a giveaway at BlogPaws or it might have been something I found donated to the shelter. Either way I am not sure why I brought it home, as something that lists 'pasta' as a selling point for cat food.. well lets just say I had a skeptical even before I went to open up the container.

This is what the food looks like in the bowl. Something to point out about this food is that each can comes with its own plastic cover. You can see it in that first photo. Nice that it comes with a cover, but kind of wasteful if this is all you feed.. or even if you use it regularly.

Yes, I have been sitting on this for a while. I took the photos and they sat on my phone since the end of June.  That is Katie eating it and Mimi trying to figure out what mom is doing.

Three minutes of eating later, and this is the end result. All of the pasta was left behind - well I am assuming that was all of it. The peas were as well - except that half pea in the middle there.. but I'm sure that was on accident.

It really does boggle the mind that people see an obligate carnivore and think "yes, this needs peas and pasta!!" Yes, I know there are cats out there who love peas and who love pasta, but they are weird* and we shouldn't indulge their eccentricities any more than they force us to.

I had three cans of this, and the other two went to the shelter so someone else could pick up the pasta that the cats will spit out and throw it away (or maybe someone who has a weird* cat found it and they ate the whole thing)

*I mean that in the best possible way, cause what makes you different makes you special!

Yes, Mimi is bit bigger now.

The second product is Cat's Pride Fresh & Light 100% Recycled Paper scoopable litter. I found this one at my local store that was going out of business so I bought it at a discount.  I am always looking for alternatives to the plain unscented scoopable litters I favor for the simple fact that clay for the litter is generally strip mined. I don't buy into biodegradable litters because most litter goes into a landfill where most things don't degrade no matter how degradable they are, and sadly because of the fear of toxoplasmosis most litter isn't compostable. Yes, you can compost litter and yes, you can get litter to biodegrade, but in general these things aren't going to happen.

I was kind of excited to try this litter because unlike other alternative litters, this one actually looked like the litter we are all used to. The pellets were small and sand like, which feeds into the cat's natural instincts of digging and burying their waste in sand - being desert creatures and all that.

However, what got me was the smell. This is a scented product, and at first I couldn't figure out what the smell reminded me of. My husband said industrial cleaner, but after hanging out with the scent for a while (once I poured it into the litter box there was no getting away from it) I came up with almond extract. I went and read reviews on Amazon to see what other people were saying and a couple of people mentioned it being cherry scented. Regardless of what the scent actually was, it was overpowering. My foster litter boxes are contained with in a larger constructed box so generally the scent doesn't waft up from in there despite there being a lot of air flow options (the back is wide open) but this stuff filled the room.

I assumed the scent would dissipate and left it down for the kittens. The next morning the smell hit me as I walked in the room. When I went to scoop I found that box just as I had left it and the deposits of all five kittens were all left in the box that contained the unscented litter. That night, same thing. On the third day I gave up and covered the litter with some of the unscented stuff hoping to cut the smell. That was the trick and they started using the box, but still for the most part avoided it. It was pretty obvious since one box had two to three times the action. At that point I gave up on the litter. I can mix lower quality litter in the tub I keep in the kitten room to house litter (when I bring it home I dump it all in there, makes for easier refill of the boxes) and use it up that way, but this stuff I decided to bring to the shelter and let someone else have a go at it.

It has a lot going for it. The look and feel of the particles, it clumped impressively compared to other alternative litters, and the fact that it is made out of paper and is flushable, but that smell is a great big ol no thanks from me and the kittens.

So sadly two fails for us, but I won't stop looking for new products that will work for us. Your mileage may vary.. your cat might like pasta and/or you might like the scent of the litter..