Hobo Mama: pets

Showing posts with label pets. Show all posts

Monday, September 12, 2016

The perfect cat litter for a small space: ARM & HAMMER™ CLUMP & SEAL™ MicroGuard™ Cat Litter + $100 giveaway!

What do you get when you combine 1,000 square feet, 5 people, and 2 large cats?

Challenging litter box placements!

We don't have a lot of space, and we need to fit three litter boxes amidst the chaos of kids' stuff, a home business, and the accoutrements of daily life. We have visitors frequently, so we tried hiding the litter boxes cleverly, but you know who didn't like that? The cats.

So for the sake of keeping happy cats happily using the appropriate containers, the litter boxes are out in plain sight — and plain smell. One is — don't judge! — in our dining room. There's literally nowhere else to put it, so we need reliable odor control.

Enter ARM & HAMMER™ CLUMP & SEAL™ MicroGuard™ Cat Litter.

ARM & HAMMER™ CLUMP & SEAL™ MicroGuard™ Cat Litter has a 7-day odor control — guaranteed. The MicroGuard™ technology works to prevent bacterial odors that would otherwise linger even after scooping. Now that's technology we can use!

Due to past pottying challenges, I was worried about replacing our cats' litter in one swoop (scoop?), so I bought a new (fourth) litter box that I could place near an established site. I needn't have worried! My cats immediately took to the ARM & HAMMER™ CLUMP & SEAL™ MicroGuard™ Cat Litter and have gleefully used it alongside their other boxes.

The litter is really nice for me as the cat owner to use. It has a pleasant fresh scent, and the clumping with moisture-activated Micro-Granules works really well to seal around cat waste for easy scooping.

For the cat, the texture is really lovely. It's made with fine micro-particles that are smooth on paws. If you have a cat who prefers a finer texture, this is perfect! The formula is ultra low dust, which keeps your kitty's experience cleaner and your floors cleaner, too.

But what about the smell? For science — for you! — I put my nose into the box after scooping. Deep in. And then I sniffed, gingerly. And then I sniffed again, with confidence. It smelled clean! Heavy-duty odor eliminators plus ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda seal and destroy immediate odors on contact, and the MicroGuard™ technology works to prevent the growth of bacterial odor before it begins.

It works! With regular scooping, you'll experience the confidence of 7-day odor control, no matter how out-in-the-open your litter boxes are.

A tale of two kitties: Our bodies are what they are

I really, really had to convince myself not to make the title any worse of a pun by spelling it "tail." You're welcome.

I want to talk with you today about my cats — one fat, one skinny — and what that means. I think it's illustrative of what body composition is like for humans as well as felines.

We adopted our kitties from a rescue. They're purported to be Maine Coons (no idea if there's a mix of something else in there), which are a large and hearty American cat breed. They're not genetically sisters and are a year apart in age, but they were raised together, so we adopted them as a bonded pair.

The big one has the broad, strong frame of a typical Maine Coon, but then she's added quite a bit o' bulk to it. Her sister is petite, very small for her breed, and so thin you can feel her spine clearly when you pet her.

I think you can see the size difference. The little, darker one is so fluffy, it's hard to eyeball how skinny she is underneath all the fur. You can see the larger one hanging off the top of the scratcher.

This is the small kitty on the same scratcher, for comparison.

They both get the same food and the same exercise opportunities. I find this fascinating.

There's a current, overwhelming tendency for any talk of overweight to blame the (human) person for being fat. There's an overt messaging that being fat is a moral failing, an inability to curb decadent gluttony or "get off the couch once in awhile." It is so culturally ingrained that most fat people believe this themselves, even if they have personal evidence that it's not true.

I think my cats could help us shed some light on this one.

Wordless Wednesday: Cute kid & a two-headed cat

Loving this boy.

And this wild hair.

Wordless Wednesday: What a cat wearing pants looks like

cat wearing pants - pets in jeans photo IMG_7482_zpsa9fa512b.jpg

Now you know.

Wordless Wednesday: Valentine's fun

We don't usually make much of holidays, but I caught wind that Sam had gotten me something for Valentine's Day (five-year-olds are crap for secrets), so I decided to make a bit of effort. I'm glad I did, because we had fun!

We started off the day with a scavenger hunt I'd prepared the night before.

Sam had brought home sunflowers, perfect for hiding one of my clues.

The treasure, le sigh. You know the ennui that overtakes you when you find a big pile of unexpected presents and then have to open them all? Yeah…like that. So sad.

It's a hard knock life.