The Behavioural Impact of Cats and Litter: Transitioning from a Clay-based Litter to a Plant-based litter and Attracting Cats with an Innovated Litter

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Date

2019-09-14

Authors

Frayne, Jennifer

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

University of Guelph

Abstract

House soiling in domestic cats has resulted in many cats being surrendered to an animal shelter or euthanized. The objective was to determine how cats transitioned from one litter product to another, and to determine the efficacy of using an attractant built into a litter product to attract cats to the litter. In the first study, cats were transitioned over six days from clay-based litter to plant-based litter with relatively few aversive behaviours or soiling excessively outside of the litter box. In the second study, cats were exposed to a novel plant-based litter with an attractant built in which they used more than the plant-based litter. The studies suggest that most cats should be transitioned over six days when introducing novel litter products. In addition, the plant-based litter with attractant could be used to reduce the likelihood of cats becoming aversive to their litter box along with other current recommendations.

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Keywords

elimination, attractant, litter, cats, behaviour, video observations, sex

Citation

Frayne, J., Murray, S.M., Croney, C., Flickinger, E., Edwards, M., Shoveller, A.K. The Behavioural Effects of Innovative Litter Developed to Attract Cats. Animals 2019, 9, 683. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9090683