Reprinted from Pawprintsthemagazine.com

By Stacy E. Smith

Who has an electric, automated, self-cleaning litter box (LitterMaid, etc.)? Raise your hand. Who wishes they had one, but would rather not spend a couple of hundred bucks on a litter box? Who has one and wishes they hadn’t spent a couple of hundred bucks on it? We can relate. We have one that sits unplugged and is now scooped just like a traditional, non-electric, non-self-cleaning, non-automated litter box. The rake that moved back and forth across the litter in order to sift out the clumps and leave clean litter behind seemed to always be clogged with the sticky combination of urine/feces and kitty litter causing the entire machine to jam.

I came upon Litter-Robot a while ago, by accident, on the Internet (as I do many products) and based on the differences, thought we should give it a try. What is the difference? Litter-Robot is round – sort of shaped like a globe. We call it “Kenny” because, to us, it looks like the so-named, hooded, parka-clad character on the animated series, “South Park” on Comedy Central. The cat enters the globe, does its business and leaves just like a traditional covered litter box. Litter-Robot has an electronic sensor that tells it cycle seven minutes after a cat leaves. It slowly rotates and the clean litter is sifted through a grid into a holding area below. The beauty of this system is that there is absolutely nothing on which the cat’s “clumps” may become stuck. The unit then rotates back and forth a few times dumping the clumps into the receptacle tray below, and finally the last rotation allows the clean litter back into the globe with the unit returned to its original “home” position. There are a series of three lights that let you know what the Litter-Robot is doing; the green “ready light” signals that it is ready for use again (not that your cat needs to learn those). There is a safety mechanism in place that prevents the Litter-Robot from operating when a cat is inside. The globe rotates so slowly; so slowly that I’m not sure there would be much of  a problem if the cat decided to re-enter the globe, but there is an additional safety feature in place that shuts off the motor automatically if that were to happen. It is impossible to imagine any cat that would climb into anything that is moving and making noise.

The receptacle needs to be lined, but one of the features of Litter-Robot is that there are no special liners to buy; ordinary kitchen garbage bags will do the trick.