I am a cat lover. I have had a pet cat for as long as I can remember. I grew up on a farm so there were several cats that lived in the barn. They were friendly and let you pet them, but they were not allowed to come in the house. We had one female house cat. She was a calico. Each spring she would have a litter of kittens in the basement. She would nurse them and care for them until they were weaned and then she would take off for the summer. We would not see her for several weeks and then she would show up again. She would be skinning and her fur would be matted. During the time she would be gone we would transition the kittens out to the barn, or would give them to people for pets.

I often wondered where she went on her cat getaways. It would take her a few weeks to fatten back up and get the tangles out of her fur. She was quite independent, yet she loved to sit on your lap to be petted and every night she would lie at the foot of my bed. The best thing about her was that we did not have to change a cat litter box very often. She preferred to go outside. We kept a cat litter box in the basement area for her, but she would go and meow at the door to be let out. She would cry at the door when she wanted to come back in. The only time she used the cat litter box was in the winter when it was extremely cold outside.

After I was married I convince my husband that we should have a cat in the house. We lived out in the country. We owned twenty acres of land and a house and garage. The cat we found was all black. He was a great hunter. He would roam at night and sleep in the house all day during the warm months. In the winter he stayed in the house most of the time. He preferred going outside rather than using a cat litter box. Now that we live in a neighborhood with a busy street in front of our house our present cat uses the litter box all the time. We were not used to having to clean the cat litter box as often as we have to now. We have tried different litters and we found one that the cats like and that covers the odor very well. We keep the litter box in the laundry room of the basement. We keep the door propped open so the cats are able to get to the litter box whenever they need to. We make sure that we clean the box out a couple times a week to keep the smell down and for the health of the cats.