# retraining cat to use litter robot



## velvet6 (Dec 17, 2008)

Hey everyone.

My littermaid just stopped working today. There was no indication of what was wrong. We tried to do some trouble shooting using the instruction manual. Zilch.

So I called the nice people at Petsmart and they offered me an exchange. Which for now, I'm gonna go for on the hopes that this was a fluke and I randomly ended up with the bad egg. Yeah, I know...it's gotten a lot of bad reviews, but I thought I was one of the few that lucked out because it honestly hasn't given me one speck of trouble since I first purchased it and has really made a difference in terms of mess (much less), smell (greatly reduced) and work (only need to do a quick sifting once a day for stray clumps). If this new one suddenly stops working, then that's it. I will figure out a way to get my money back and I'm considering getting a litter robot.

The only thing is, I'm wondering how Velvet will take to it. Judging by it's dimensions, I'm going to have to figure out a new location for it since I doubt it will fit where I have the litter maid. Not only will there be a change in location, but it's a completely different shape and probably requires him hopping into it rather than walking up the ramp into the littermaid. I'm trying to figure out what I will need to do in order to get him used to a new "box" and a new place for it. 

He had no problem transitioning from the litter box he used (my friend's back yard) when he was a stray to using the littermaid. I just put him inside the litterbox, he sniffed, pawed the litter and right away "went to work." And that was the training session...took all of 5 seconds and never a problem since. I'm not so sure transitioning to yet another contraption will be as smooth.

Any thoughts on the matter will be appreciated.

Thanks!


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## JadeHeart (Feb 12, 2009)

You didn't post how long your Littermaid lasted? 

I just had delivered to my daughter's house a LitterWorks system that uses the Littermaid. LitterWorks is the cabinet system that the Littermaid dumps the clumps into a waste bag instead of the disposible trays. Ingenious system that relies on the Littermaid. My research into all systems available narrowed the choice to this. So far, the system has worked but ... leaving the daughter to choose litter at the cheapest price did no turn out well. She finally tested the clumping effectiveness of the litter she bought and found that it did not clump. My family is new to the cat world. The cutest story I've heard about the Littermaid is that the older cat after doing her business actually waits around for the Littermaid to do its thing and rake. Cats love to be entertained with anything. 

Good luck with your choice of a new system. I'ld like to hear from cat owners who use the different litterbox systems.


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## katlover13 (Apr 15, 2008)

We have a litter robot. (We call it the death star) Of the seven cats I think only three are using it. I have just moved it upstairs into my study so that Orlando won't have to go to the basement with his bad leg, so it may get more use now.
It is nice that you don't have to purchase special bags for it, regular garbage bags work. I am going to put a large plastic tray under it, though because sometimes some pee leaks through. 
The cats love to watch it work. If you go to the litter robot web site there is a link to u-tube so you can see how it works.


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## JadeHeart (Feb 12, 2009)

I must assume that you will use bought plastic bags. The bags they give away now in our grocery stores rip the minute you put something in them and then they are ultra small. Stores want us to think we are buying so much when we have scads of plastic bags in our cart. Today's story about the cats. My daughter bought the wrong type of litter. No wonder it was so cheap at Costco, $6.99 for 50 lbs. Yesterday she replaced the litter, so the system is working fine, but wouldn't you know it, one of the cats pushed the laundry detergent box and down it went into the new litter. So they get their box cleaned again. The good news is that Dixie has forgiven the daughter and has resumed her position on the coach watching T.V. with them.


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## velvet6 (Dec 17, 2008)

I purchased the first littermaid on December 1st and it worked beautifully until the morning of January 22nd. The new one that Petsmart gave me in exchange the day the old one stopped working is making weird noises and leaves behind a lot of clumps even though I use Arm and Hammer and I keep everything clean. So not sure what to do at this point besides file a dispute with the card company and try to get my money back. I realize that even with a self cleaning box, there's some amount of work involved, but w/this newer machine, I'm basically spending the same amount of time if I just had a simple plastic litter box.

Ah well, back to the drawing board.


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