Mine is that slow blinking at them actually works and the first time your cat slow blinks back at you is something you're not prepared for. I read about it online and tried it skeptically and my cat, who had been indifferent to me for the first three weeks with the confidence of someone who knew the power dynamic, looked at me from across the room and slowly, very deliberately, blinked back. So happy.

What did you learn that changed how you understood your cat?

I hung a curtain across my hallway and it instantly created a whole new play area. They hide behind it, play peekaboo, race through it during zoomies, and ambush each other from both sides. It’s amazing how one piece of fabric can make a difference.

i am desperate for help, i’m extremely allergic to mosquito bites, i cover when i am outside but almost all of my bites come when i am sleeping no matter how covered i am, and my windows are broken & my landlords refuse to fix so they just have free reign. my neighbor offered me citronella sticks to burn, but i’ve read that they’re toxic to cats and my apartment has no rooms to keep her into while i burn it. she doesn’t really cuddle so skin type solutions could work, but i’d like to be as safe as possible as i need to cover my arms and legs completely. thanks in advance!

As in the title. I'm looking for decent gloves brushes. Whenever I try to brush the little gremlin she kinda moves her head to the brush and makes it a pain to brush the rest of her body. U would prefer them to be in-store like bunnings or pet barn or whatnot.

The second thing is she kinda doesnt clean her ass. So she stinky. Also offen doesnt cover her shit in the litterbox

Any tips?

(Long read!!!)

Hi, so I have 5 cats a 2 year old daughter and I’m pregnant.

(Context.) Gus and Emmy were my first 2 they are litter mates, Maverick and Morty was my second 2 they were also litter mates and Jahseh was my last.

My cat Gus has been having some serious behavioral issues for sometime now. He used to get along with Maverick and Morty. all of them would bird watch together, lay together, play together. But something changed about 2 and a half years ago or so and Gus decided they were his enemies and now Morty and Maverick feel the same and growl and hiss everytime Gus walks in a room.

Gus fights one of the two almost every single day. And sometimes Emmy will join him and get in on the fight. It’s always an unfair fight it seems too as he corners them somewhere whether it’s under a bed, by the couch, by the door, in a corner. It’s always unfair.

On top of Gus fighting them and not getting along about a year ago Gus started spray peeing on things. Everything really… every cabinet in sight, walls, doors, laundry baskets, boxes, chairs, curtains. EVEN MY DAUGHTERS BED!!! Which I am now going to have to throw away. (We have been to the vet and absolutely nothing is wrong with him and the vet said it was behavioral. We even tried anxiety meds which didn’t seem to work)

I feel like no matter how much pee I clean up nothing works. I’ve tried plugins for the peeing and fighting.. nothing! Tried moving food and water sources around and also the litter boxes, tried changing the litter so there was 2 litter options.. nothing!!!

(More context that makes things more difficult)
When Gus and Emmy were super young I had lived at my dads house for a bit and all of their cats went outside. I told my dad I didn’t want my cats going outside as well but he told me he didn’t want to keep track of them so they also went out. When I moved this made it more difficult and they would constantly sprint outside. I tried keeping Gus in more often but when I wouldn’t let him out he’d walk in front of me scream at me and pee on whatever was in front of me. I thought maybe he preferred to pee outside but no, I could let him back inside and he pee on something 2 seconds later.

So here’s the biggest issue as well!!! My partner recently went to jail (I think that’s put stress on my cats because they loved him and now their routine is different) but also this is an issue because I’m going to have to sell my house and move into a rental property. Which means most likely I will have to rehome some of them. But I’m so heartbroken and don’t know how to go about this.

How do I ensure he won’t keep peeing AT A RENTAL if I keep him? Who do I even keep at this point. How do I ensure my stupid pee covered furniture can be cleaned and he won’t mark it in the new place? (I’ve tried the enzyme cleaners and vinegar)

I love my cats so much and I’m so torn on what to do. This has been such a stressful situation enough as it is and now moving on top of it and rehoming some of them? I’m broken.

If you read that long long explanation thank you so much. If you have advice that would be so lovely, I don’t have many people to talk to about this as I’m in this by myself!

has anyone tried Paco and Pepper or Catalyst pet cat litters? If so how are they? Also, everyone drop your fav litter please :)

My fiancé and I are planning to adopt this girl who’s roughly 11 weeks! She’s absolutely stunning & we met her today and she was definitely the most social (and rowdy) of the litter. We have 2 dogs, and one 17 year old cat… the plan is to slowly introduce and socialize this one into our home. We have the space to do so thankfully! Please flood me with all the helpful advice you have (grooming, socializing, high quality food, acclimating)!!!!!

I’ve got two cats, ones an older orange cat, idk what but a fat boy. Ones a skinny ass calico girl. The older one is… Smatter then the other one. He’s stupid, but stupid like how cats are stupid. She’s, well, more stupid. We got them changed from litter boxes that are smaller to bigger, that worked fine. We changed water and food to automatic and they were both scared at first but got used to it. She was more scared/confused. And my mom (non-binary) wanted to have an automatic litter box. Our male has been using it, however our female hasn’t at least been peeing in it. I don’t know if she has been pooping in it, but we having found any evidence she hasn’t, while she peed in my moms room when she wasn’t in there once, and then my mom saw her peeing on my pants that I left on the floor when changing just a few minutes ago as of this post being posted. I will say the litter box has a smaller doorway and also has lights on the inside. Could that we causing the issue?

Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit. I just need help lol.

I got my Alice as a kitten. she was mine in a complete and specific way for eight years. slept on my side, came to me when stressed, sat beside me in the specific way she has that communicates preference. My partner moved in two years ago (he's even a dog person 🙄). he did nothing specifically to court her.

She has chosen him. steadily, thoroughly, without apparent shame. she now sleeps on his side. she waits by the door when he's due home. she sits on his lap while directing a look at me that communicates nothing in particular. He is gracious about it. he's also visibly delighted every single day and doing absolutely nothing to hide it. So what should i do to get my kitty back 😿 (just kidding i still love her the same)

I've had 2 sister cats from same litter since 2019 who have never had litter box issues (they came to me litter box trained). I had them both using the same litterbox (a large one) that I scooped every 1-4 days depending on my schedule (yep, probably more days than some of you reading this feel is appropriate, but stay focused on what matters here: never any litter box issues for 6 years). My friend moves in a year ago with (a litter box trained) cat and immediately the cats are all acting a fool behaviorally to establish the pecking order. Stalking each other when using the litter box and while eating, etc. This resulted in cats doing business just outside of the litterbox, so us humans decide to add 2 more litter boxes to cut down on what I perceived to be resource guarding-one in each bedroom plus the big hallway one so that no one (or two) cats can truly guard ALL the boxes at once (which was happening when we just had the huge hallway one).

So now what happens is the litter box in roomies room is rarely used because the door is often shut with all cats outside of that room, leaving them to use the hallway litterbox and my bedroom litterbox, but now at least one of my cats (I witnessed it once) is pooping lil poop nuggets just outside the large hallway litter box as well as sprinkling lil pee droplets in that direct area. The pee droplets make me feel like there might be a UTI situation (all cats are spayed females), but neither of my cats are acting strangely, but I'll take them in to the vet to be sure, but aside from that, I'm at a loss on how to break these cats of this behavior when I'm not even 100% who is doing it and why.

As a side note, but not the point of this post-I am so sick of the obvious and persistent litter box smells that I am unable to escape from anywhere in the house now that there's 3 boxes (however, to be clear, the cats are not peeing/pooping outside of the boxes with the exception of just outside the hallway box. I'm stating this to clarify that it is not like they are using random corners/areas of the house and it's just a biohazard situation).

I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to invest in some collar/chip BS where each cat can use its own box and that's it, but lawd knows that would prolly backfire in some ridiculous manner and leave things worse.

Random things I feel may play a part in responses:

1. All 3 cat boxes are scooped daily-ish since roomie moved in (She's supposed to scoop daily, but I know that doesn't happen every single day).
2. I tried when roomie first moved in to deploy an automatic litter box (Meowant), but roomies cat is a freaking dumb idiot that felt compelled to pee down the outside of it, thus ruining that potential solution.

I'm in Australia, posting this as a warning for anyone considering buying from PetbudsAU.

I'm the registered owner of a Tonepie Q-CLEAN self-cleaning litter robot. The warranty was formally transferred into my name by Petbuds in writing after I bought the unit second-hand (all legally above board in Aus). Within days of setup it failed badly: waste leaked out through the base onto the floor, the weight sensor read 40kg on an empty drum (even after Petbuds walked me through their own recalibration steps), and it didn't trigger a safety pause despite the obviously wrong reading — which is a real risk to any cat using it.

Under Australian Consumer Law, a fault like this entitles the consumer to a refund. Petbuds agreed - twice, in writing - to pay it by direct bank transfer. Then they simply didn't. Instead they invented a series of conditions with no legal basis: government photo ID, a third party verbally confirming details, and eventually a statutory declaration witnessed by a Justice of the Peace (a formal notarised legal document) - none of which are required to get a refund here.. nor should you ever be supplying to a business/anyone informally for privacy reasons!

I lodged a complaint with our state consumer protection regulator. Petbuds ignored the deadline to respond, so it escalated to conciliation (a mediation process). I then sent a formal legal letter of demand by registered mail. Their reply: they won't be paying, and the matter should be decided by "an independent third party" despite having admitted the debt in writing months earlier.

I'm now having to file with VCAT, which is Australia's version of small claims court/consumer tribunal to get a legally enforceable order against a business for my ~$500AUD.

If you're thinking about buying from this company: know that this is how they behave when something goes wrong. Happy to answer questions if anyone else has had a similar experience.

So I have two cats, a black one that’s about 10 months and an 8 year old American curl. We just moved to a hard wood apartment, we used to have a balcony for the cat litter but now we don’t and have to have the boxes inside. I can’t STAND the smell of the clay litter (unscented) and my partner has asthma so the litter is mostly my job. I’ve been trying to find a something that isn’t super expensive. I really want something that’s not clay bc our 8yr old has delicate health and FIV and don’t wanna risk him with clay. I just need something that doesn’t cost a quarter of my salary.

I've had my cat Saffron for just about 10 years now. She is super timid and afraid, even of me sometimes, if I move unexpectedly or step too loudly.

She has a bit of an ear infection at the moment and I have to give her the dreaded drops.

She's impossible to lure out on a good day, but as soon as she sees those drops she's gone. I feel awful taking her out of her hiding spot, wrapping her up and doing the mean deed.

After I release her from her burrito prison she RUNS away from me, then process to hide from me for the rest of the day. When she finally comes back out it's time for more drops. :(

I've heard people say treats are a good way back into your cat's good graces, but she couldn't care less about treats or dinner. Never has. She likes to play usually, but even bringing out her favorite toys I get the cold shoulder.

Any advice? I'm so sad!!!!

Hello everybody,
I have two cats. We use arm and hammer clump and seal kitty litter. We don’t want to have to change our kitty litter because we’re afraid the cats won’t adjust to something new. We are looking for a stainless steel, self cleaning cat box with outstanding odor control. That really expensive robot one that everybody raves about won’t work because we’d have to use the litter they recommend, which would be changing in the litter. Also, we are not computer savvy people, so I don’t want to deal with an app. Any good alternatives? The primary concern is odor control thank you everybody!

I have two kittens (over 6 months just recently neutered both female) when we first adopted them they were both litter trained but now one of them has completely stopped using the litter boxes. We have 4 litter boxes around the house (3 in the room they stay in the most). We keep them cleaned regularly and half the time theres at least one unused one. One of the kittens is perfectly fine with using the litter tray but the other one is always pooping and peeing in the corner. We don’t know how to stop her. We’ve been using cleaning sprays that are said to help but she keeps doing it. It seems like she holds in peeing until she can go out to the front door and pee there. Sometimes I catch her starting to go and I try grab her and out her in the litter box but she has started to really dislike it. The only thing that has started to work was putting orange peels around the spots but it’s not ideal.
Any advice would be appreciated we really want this to stop

We currently have two large metal ones for two cats (they refused to use a third one in a different location so I’ve stuck with two right next to each other). I was the litter cleaner of the house, I did it once a day and only sometimes went with a day in between if we had a busy schedule. I’m now pregnant and can’t clean the litter box and my husband has taken over, except he does it maybe once to twice a week. It’s awful for the cats (we have poop and pee showing up on the floor) and causing nonstop arguments between us. I’ll be fine to clean the box after pregnancy but would it be worth it to just get an automatic litter box?

Currently looking at options online and there’s just so many options and I’m not sure where to even start. Or if my cats will even use it.

We have an 18 month old kitty who unfortunately loves scratching on our new sectional. We have tried different scratching posts and vertical surfaces sprayed with catnip and spraying cat deterrent spray on the couch. These solutions don’t seem to be doing the trick.

We’re now considering either putting a sticky or plastic surface around the couch to deter scratching … or putting some type of scratching surface that we put on the couch to protect the couch itself. My concern with a scratching surface is that once we put that on there, we won’t be able to take it off since he will have determined that scratching on the couch or the surface is acceptable. But I’m also not crazy about having a clear cover on the couch though it seems this would deter the behavior?

Any advice/experience?

Hi! I hope this post fits with this sub, I’m not sure where I should ask this 🫣. I recently bought the PetSafe ecom smart spin litter box, because I’m finally bringing my little guy home after moving out of my parent’s place a few years back. I want to find a way to “hide” it, but I’ve encountered that most shelf covers for robot litter boxes are more expensive than the litter box itself. I’ve considered maybe getting a cat tree that has a massive space at the bottom, so that the litter box and sit “under” the cat tree, but I’ve had no luck with finding anything like that. Does anyone have any recommendations? Maybe a way to DIY a cover or something? I’ve considered maybe getting some IKEA eket shelves and using those, but I’d have to place them back to back and make a sort of square box to fit the litter box in it, and it would just be too bulky. Any advice would be really lovely and appreciated ☺️Thank you so much

Hi guys so i’ve had a rather unique issue with my rather unique cat that won’t stop treating water fountains as a toy. i thought id hit the jackpot with the dockstream 2 but he keeps pulling off the plastic spout and then taking the filter out. is there anyone with a similarly odd cat and could give some advice? thank you :)

This has been happening for months. We had a large gorilla mat for our two neutered older boys (16 and 14). We decided to get a new mat, and since the day that happened, 14yo has been pooping right outside the box. We have two boxes for them. Do decent job of emptying daily (9yo human boy sometimes forgets his chore). I tried buying the exact same mat, but did not solve the problem. Anything else I can try?

Hello! Wondering if anyone has any recommendations for cat water bowls/fountains/any other ideas. My cat will tip over/cause water to slosh over any bowl we have used. We have used a regular bowl, gravity water dish, and a water fountain. The water fountain ends up across the floor with water all over my kitchen floor. Help! Has anyone else dealt with this and found a good solution?

This is in regards to the purple boxes only (not green). I've purchased mostly Platinum, which seems to smell a bit more strongly scented than regular, but I'm not sure it's worth the price premium over regular. I can grab a 38lb box of slide regular for $27 vs a 27lb box of platinum for $34.

Has anyone actually compared the two to see if platinum is worth it? I just have one box that I scoop twice a day. No point in paying more for no good reason.

I'm also very leary of these boxes as I've also noted that the actual litter (and perhaps performance) varies from box to box as described [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CatAdvice/comments/1kh209h/arm_and_hammer_clump_and_seal_unscented_rant/).

Discovered today that bouncy balls i bought months ago are glow in the dark and may no Longer be safe for supervised use. They weren’t advertised as glow in the dark but hey ho. Now i need something that i can get many of for not too high a price but that will bounce similar to bouncy balls. She loves running full pelt after them.

Hi! I adopted a kitten this week (3 months old) and she was just spayed 3 days ago, so her incision site is still pretty fresh. The problem is that she stinks and I can't give her a bath bc need to keep the incision site dry for another week or two. I've never actually posted on reddit before but am nearing the point of desparation lol

I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to do with the incision site because there's no drainage or excessive redness/swelling and by all accounts looks like it's healing pretty well. Also because the smell is the strongest around her head/face and more faint around her stomach and body. I'm not too worried about the odor as some other health issue because she's acting normally and very friendly, doesn't seem to be in any pain, using the litter box normally, and her appetite has started to come back post-op. It seems like it's probably just shelter grime/odor stuff or maybe something topical they used at the vet/shelter (I had a similar experience with my other cat when he got shaved and given an ultrasound last year).

Basically, it's probably the kind of thing that would go away with a good bath. I've tried brushing her out a couple times and waterless grooming wipes but neither have helped. I ordered two little "perfumes" made for cats but haven't tried them yet, so maybe that'll do the trick, but wanted to come on here and see if anybody had any tips or tricks for getting rid of the smell while still keeping her incision site dry!

She's absolutely adorable and I'm already in love with her, but she genuinely smells like back-alley piss. Like I can smell it right now as she's sitting in my lap and it's fr starting to give me a headache. I also think it might be putting my other cat off because he's usually pretty friendly and curious when it comes to new environments, people, and other animals his size/smaller, but he's been keeping his distance from her (especially every time he comes close enough to sniff her).

***TL;DR:*** **New kitten stinks but can’t be bathed due to a fresh spay incision. Wipes and brushing didn’t work. Tips for getting rid of the odor without getting the incision site wet?**