Kitty litter alternatives???

[Nereus32]

My husband and I are planning a long time cruise and we will be bringing our 7 year old cat. I am having a major dilemma with what to use as litter. First of all I don''t want to have to store such a heavy awkward litter container, plus Im not interested in stepping on litter on deck or down below. I have heard of sailors using turf like pieces of fabric and even grates that hang over the edge of the boat. I am open to all ideas so please fill me in!! Thank you all so much.

[fluffe]

Hi Nereus

WE have a cat and dog on board. Although we use the usual kitty litter, we have used sand from beaches, but a visiting yachtie did use a piece of synthetic turf with an eye hole in one corner for attaching line to wash overboard.

She trained her cat and dog to use the turf by (for cat) placing turf into litter box and gradually reducing the litter until there was none and the cat was used to the turf on its''own.

I have yet to try this as we are stationary and not cruising at this time.

Hope this works for you.

Kind regards

Gail
Yacht Ramona
Austalia

[boatguy30]

We have sailed with our cat a few times, the longest being a 5 week trip to the Bahamas last summer. We started out with her usual box with a door mat cut to fit into it, with pine biodegradable litter on top of that. As the weeks went by we gradually reduced the amount of litter we used, until there was none. We decided that it is better to have a little bit of litter in the pan due to the smell, even with washing the pan and mat daily. We are leaving in November for good and are going to stick to this. Good Luck!

[OutofBounds]

We''ve been cruising with our cat(s) for most of the 15 years that we''ve been aboard. Here''s an article on our website that discusses kitty litter alternatives, "What''s the Scoop on Cat Litter?"
http://www.thecruisinglife.com/?page=pet

Barb
www.TheCruisingLife.com

[SailorGrandma]

We don''t have our cat on the boat yet, but we trained him to use the toilet at home. When we are livaboards we will train him to use the head. This really does work!

[locrian13]

How old was your cat when you trained him? I have a 1 1/2 year old and a 4 month old. How long did this take? I''m sure my husband will be thrilled to find cat stuff in the toilet!

[locrian13]

How old was your cat when you trained him? I have a 1 1/2 year old and a 4 month old. How long did this take? I''m sure my husband will be thrilled to find cat stuff in the toilet!

[SailorGrandma]

Our cat was about 9 months old when we trained him. But a cat would learn at any age. They have to be old enough to jump up on the seat. My husband got used to finding it. I even taught him (husband, not the cat) if he finds it before me, to whipe down the seat after he flushes. Don''t teach the cat to flush or they will do it all the time. They like to watch the stuff go down. You can buy a system for about $15.00 that will help you train him/her. They even get a certificate after trained! I found it on the internet. Don''t remember the website but just google for cat potty training, should get you there. Took only about 2 weeks to train. Good Luck!

[locrian13]

I think I''ll give this a shot. It will give me something to do until the boat is back in the water (10 weeks from Saturday! Yay!). My older girl will be 2 in March...I think she''ll take longer than the little guy, who is almost 5 months, to train. She seems to be afraid of just about everything, even though she''s reasonably social. The little one is completely fearless. I think he''ll take to sailing just fine, but I''m worried about the other one. She doesn''t like to be without the little one, though, so maybe that will help calm her down. I think I''m going to take them both down to the boat while it''s still on the hard (once everything''s put back together...we did a pretty major overhaul this winter) just so they can poke around a little.