If you’ve got an indoor cat, then you’ve got a litter box of some kind. If you’ve got a conventional litter box, then you know all about the bending, scooping, and discarding of clumped feces and urine that is a necessary evil of cat ownership. There is a better way, and that way is the self-cleaning Litter-Robot Open Air.
It’s been exactly eight years since I unboxed my first Litter-Robot and reviewed it. Since then, I have convinced several friends and family members to buy one, I’ve purchased two more, and I’ve given the two older versions I had to friends with cats — all of these Litter-Robots are still going strong!
I’ve reviewed both the Litter-Robot and the CatGenie, two automated Cat Litter Boxes here on Gear Diary, and I’ve had several years to test each extensively. On top of that, when I started using the CatGenie, and it became evident that it would work out for me, I gave the Litter-Robot to my friends Steven and June; they have been using it since early 2009. Since reviewing both, I’ve received questions about how the two stacked up to each other, but none covered as many issues as a recent letter from Danielle.
Of all the gadgets I have ever reviewed, I think that the Litter-Robot would definitely win the title of most offbeat, but it was well worth doing. I unboxed the Litter-Robot in late January, set it up, and then sat back to see whether Avah would accept this “spaceship” as her litter box. It will have been two months tomorrow, and we have both lived to tell about it, so that should immediately tell you that things went well. But let’s go back to the beginning…
If you own a cat, then you know that there is one part of pet ownership that can suck the joy out of the experience. No, I am not talking about hearing your cat hacking up hairballs in the middle of the night while she is sleeping on the bed next to you (not that Avah ever has or ever would do that, mind you); I am talking about cleaning out the litter box.