Cat Box Archeology
Posted: Friday, January 06, 2012
by Octavia Hansen
Octavia Hansen
I have a promising career as an archeologist. I have two cats (it's a long story about the second cat but I am NOT on my way to being a cat lady) and there is always a litter box to be cleaned.
The cats I have are not purebreds; though they are not special cats I love them dearly and have always subscribed to the ideal that a pet is for the life of the animal. I had cats when I was young. When the last one died off after high school, because I was a traveling babe it was impractical to keep an animal. So I went the way of the lone wanderer. Now that I am much more settled, I chose one cat and by way of friends, came into a second. They are strictly indoor cats and housebroken.
There is a cat box filler that is made from some kind of yellow sand, fine wood shavings and baking soda. It smells great, works like a charm and the cats really take to it. No, I'm not going to sell you on my brand of cat litter. Much as I love the faint smell of redwood/sequoia every time I open a bag to renew their filler, this is about my new found profession, or possible profession.
Since the filler is remarkably like sand, I feel like an archeologist when I clean their box. Shades of Howard Carter and Indiana Jones! Yes, archeology. I remember saying to a friend, "I know the technology industry will someday slow down; as for me, I have a promising future as an archeologist." I am so familiar with patterns in the sand that if I were in Egypt and the Pharaoh's cat did anything in the sand, I can find it!
I don't just empty the litter box, I sift through it -- all of it. Since there are two cats, I made a very large litter box out of a storage container -- it gives them lots of space and keeps everything contained as they cover their business and then leave. Because of this size, I have been noticing the arrangement of the sand. Maybe it's the artist in me. Maybe it's because I'm lazy and don't want to always be digging through empty sand . . . but I have learned to read patterns in the sand. I can tell where the cats have done their business and where they have merely dug around for the right spot.
I have a sister-in-law who is a geologist and for her years of study, training and practice, she can read a landscape and know if there is oil to be found or if a company is wasting time. This has always been a remarkable talent to me, she brushes it off as a job but she's very good at her job. As of the last few months, I can see this coming together. I know where things are buried in the sand. I know this isn't as remarkable as finding oil, but it saves a lot of time and makes two cats very happy.
Considering they are both medium-sized house cats, I think there is a contest between them for volume -- who can put out more in each box for the big clean. Maybe it's a territory thing -- leave something to remind the other who's the bigger cat. They used to be male cats but both are fixed. Does that make them "it" cats? I think they still have a lot of male attributes and out-doing each other is one of those continuous male games. The males of my own species are always engaged in contests . . . if they can't fight it or make two other things fight, then they race it, whatever it is. Evidently betting is on the heels of both of these activities, making it more interesting for them -- I guess. So, in this other species, since these two cats aren't fighting, they are engaged in a "mine's bigger than yours" type contest. No one is winning . . . not them . . . not me. Still a cat is a cat is a cat and when I'm not cleaning out the box, we have a great life together. Wonder what they would do outdoors in a real sand area . . . would they try to fill that, too?
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