Here’s something that I’ve been wondering about ever since I saw the ad for it on tv: http://www.catgenie.com/
It’s a self-cleaning litterbox—that looks a little like a toilet in fact. But … it’s ROUND, and I’ve seen several posters who say that cats like to use square or rectangular boxes, that they like to be able to do their business (so to speak) in a corner. According to the commercial, it cleans the litter and you’ll never have to buy any litter again! IF your cat decides to use cat genie, that is. LOL They don’t say that in the commercial, but I gather that it’s pretty standard.
So, cat owners (or should that be cat servants?), has anyone out there tried this cat genie litter system? Does it work? Well, does your cat want to use it?! Inquiring minds (well, mine at least!) want to know!
There is a fairly simple checklist for cat related things:
Did it cost you money?
If you got it for free they freaking love it but if you paid money for it they want nothing to do with it.
Does it make noise?
Dingleballs = good. They jingle and make a lot of noise and cats love them. Cat fountains or self cleaning litter boxes = bad. They make noise that scares kitties and they refuse to use them IME.
Does it contain food?
Both of the above rules can be ignored if the item in question contains food. They will learn anything and deal with any amount of noise to get at the food within the container.
Will it frustrate you if they don’t go along with your plan?
This is the most important of the rules. If you really, really, really want a cat to do something it will always do the opposite. Want the cat to use the new litterbox? That means the cat will shit in the bathtub. Want the cat to use the cat fountain? The cat will stand in the bathroom sink and scream until you turn on the water. Kitties are apparently wired to be contrary. Keep that in mind before you spend money on a new, round, electric litterbox.
We have one of these, and I can’t rave about it enough. It did take a little adjustment time for our middle-aged cat, but once we got her adjusted, it’s been smooth sailing since. Much better and easier than the Littermaid PoS that we had previously.
My only complaint about this is that our cat tends to track out the granules, so periodically we need to sweep up the area around it. Unfortunately due to placement, we couldn’t use the grey “paws” mats that you can get separately to eliminate that issue.
The build quality is really good, and customer service is excellent. They recently did a design modification to the pump internals, and they offered an upgrade kit to all current owners for cost of shipping only.
My only suggestion for improvement would be IP connectivity so it could send me information like replacement reminders for the consumables, and of course usage
Someday when I have more money than I know what to do with, I want to buy one of these things.
I bought a secondhand/used (I know! I know!) automatic litter box from LitterMaid, back when we had two Maine Coons AND two ferrets. Between the enormous cats (infrequent but substantial dumps) and the ferrets (small little wee dumps, but on a near-constant basis) I’m proud to say we ran that thing into the ground. It made the most horrifying screeching sounds, as if it was quite literally dying in pain, moving just a little slower each time. Awesome.
The previous owner sold it to me because “it’s just not getting enough use now.” Well, we made up for that.
Since then we’ve cheaped out and just used the old-fashioned kind i.e. a plastic sweater box from Target. The lid makes a nice drip/litter-catcher.
A friend of mine had one for six months before giving up on it. She gave up on it because even after that long it still scared one of her cats so witless that the cat opted to pee in the tub and crap on the kitchen floor instead.
Uh huh. If your cat can adjust to the product, it works great. LOL That can be a pretty substantial if … especially given elfkin477’s friend’s problem kitty!
Thanks to all who’ve responded so far. I’m still hoping to get more comments on this cat genie thing.
If you read the Amazon comments, people are having very mixed results. It’s not all due to the cat rejecting it, either. Maybe the units have somewhat inconsistent quality.
No scooping, no liners, no machines, no cords, no noise. Just roll the thing over with your hands, pull out a little drawer full of poop, and roll it back the other way. Hose it out every month or so.
