I Switched to Self-Cleaning Litter Boxes in My Home, and I Wish I'd Done It Sooner
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Two years ago, I reluctantly inherited a cat. The cat is both mine and not mine: Sky belongs to my daughter, who owns her in the way a pet can "belong" to a minor while an adult operates silently in the background, managing its costs and responsibilities. Chalking it up as an opportunity to teach my kid new skills, I rarely feed Sky, brush her coat, or clean her litter box. Instead, I chose the worse task of incessantly reminding a teenager to do them.
If you have a cat, you're likely familiar with the challenges that come from a dirty litter box. And if you have a teenager, you know how frequently they can resist completing tasks. But only if you have both can you understand just how bad Sky's litter box situation became: the rancid smell, the spilled litter across the floor, and a cat who looked for alternatives to their unsanitary box. Stubbornly, I wanted a solution that would address both my cat litter problem and my desire to teach my kid to take responsibility for her cat. The outcome was testing self-cleaning litter boxes that could manage both Sky and my daughter on my behalf.
I tested two self-cleaning litter boxes from prominent companies that fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. The first I tried was the Petkit Purobot Ultra, a high-end self-cleaning litter box with premium features like an AI-powered camera and video recording. Its large size, space-age shape, and automatic video camera beg for attention, and it's a good choice for owners who need a litter box that can accommodate multiple cats. The other was the popular Litter-Robot by Whisker, a more discreet automatic litter box that blends in more easily with most decor. I used the EVO model, a more compact version of the Litter-Robot 4, suitable for single-cat owners.
The benefits and downsides of automatic litter boxes
Litter boxes have come a long way since the first patent for an automatic, self-cleaning litter box was granted in 1991. You may recall litter boxes with mechanical rakes that comb waste into a bin. Those have since given way to barrel drum models like the Petkit Purobot Ultra, Whisker Litter-Robot, and others you've likely seen, which use a rotating barrel-and-grate system. When a cat uses the litter box, sensors detect when the cat has left, and the barrel automatically begins to cycle. As the drum cycles, clean litter is filtered through a grate, while waste falls into a separate compartment for manual emptying later.
Once my cat acclimated to her new self-cleaning litter boxes, the benefits were obvious: The litter was always clean, there was far less odor, and I tossed our litter scoop. Our home has a cleaner, more sanitary litter box area.
Other benefits of a self-cleaning litter box include cleaning when I'm away for unexpected periods, tracking our cat's weight, and, in the long run, saving money on cat litter. Since automatic litter boxes are cleaned after each use, it's less likely that broken clumps will contaminate the clean litter. It can also look cool. (But it can also look ugly. Your mileage will vary based on the model you choose and where you place it in your home.)
The downsides of switching to a self-cleaning litter box can include the high upfront cost, the risk of choosing a faulty knock-off model, and the fact that automatic litter boxes aren't good for kittens (typically, you want to wait until cats are litter-trained, older than six months, and weigh more than three pounds).
If you decide to add an automated, self-cleaning litter box to your home, there are steps you can take to ease your cat's transition. We have a shy cat who was pretty timid when we switched from her standard litter boxes to automatic ones, but a few steps helped her acclimate. First, we placed the new box next to the old one so our cat could associate the new litter box with the same area as her old one. Then, we added a small amount of litter from her old litter box to her new one to help it carry a familiar scent. After she used the new litter box a few times, we got rid of the old one entirely. Making the change was long overdue, and I wish I'd done it sooner, because switching to an automated, self-cleaning litter box is the best decision I've ever made as a cat owner.