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- Not a substitute for professional veterinary help.
If your cat has a history of urinary tract infections, kidney problems, or is at risk for diabetes, Pretty Litter could be a lifesaver. Indicators in the white silica gel crystals turn red, orange, dark green, or blue if your cat’s urine is abnormal, warning you that there’s a problem that requires a call or a trip to the vet. But if you have a healthy cat, is this non-clumping litter, available only by subscription, worth the price? We set up a subscription with Pretty Litter to review it and find out.
Why Testing Your Cat’s Urine Can Protect Their Health
Cat urine provides valuable clues about your feline’s health, and Pretty Litter is designed to react to the difference in their urine’s chemistry when something is amiss. Since cats are notoriously good at hiding pain and illness, a litter that tests urine can be a valuable tool for a concerned cat owner.
If there is blood in the urine (from an injury or disease), it can indicate issues such as a urinary tract disorder, bladder cancer, or internal injury. Blood may not be visible to the naked eye, but Pretty Litter would turn red.
If your cat’s urine is unusually acidic, that can indicate metabolic problems (Pretty Litter will turn orange). If your cat’s urine is abnormally alkaline, that could mean a urinary tract infection (Pretty Litter will turn blue).
Keep in mind that Pretty Litter does not diagnose the health issue. It only lets you know that indicators are present in the urine and something might be wrong. To find out what’s wrong, and if it can be treated, you’ll definitely need to consult with your veterinarian.
Who’s Behind Pretty Litter?
Pretty Litter is a privately-held Los Angeles company, founded in 2015. Working with veterinarians, they developed a litter that would help cat parents keep tabs on their kitties’ health. The first bags of litter shipped to consumers in 2016.
Comparing Pretty Litter to Other Litters
Using Pretty Litter is easy, but it’s different from most other litters. We looked at the following factors as we reviewed Pretty Litter:
Purchasing. Pretty Litter is delivery-only, purchased online on a subscription basis directly from PrettyLitter.com. You’ll need one bag of litter per cat per month if you have multiple cats and want to use it in all your litter boxes (for this review, I used it in just one). What if you decide you don’t like Pretty Litter? The good news is that canceling the subscription is a straightforward and easy process via the website.
Cost. Pretty Litter starts at $24 per bag, delivery included. There are slight discounts if you are ordering multiple bags per month. This puts it near the higher end of the range of litter costs.
Appearance. Pretty Litter is made of silica gel crystals and looks like fine, bright-white sand. It’s also very lightweight, which makes it easy to handle the bag and the litter box—an important consideration for owners with mobility or strength issues.
Cleanup. Pretty Litter is non-clumping, so when you scoop the litter you’ll be removing cat poop and mixing the urine spots (yellow, if your cat is healthy) back into the litter. We found, during the course of our review, that this makes daily scooping really fast. At the end of the month, you put the litter in the trash, clean the box, and pour a new bag in. Pretty Litter also works with some automatic cat litter boxes.
Odor Control. Here’s where Pretty Litter stood out in our review—it absolutely removes the smell of cat urine. If I lived in a small apartment where litter odor was a risk, I’d use Pretty Litter just for the odor control, never mind the health indicators.
Tracking. Oops. Our review found that this fine, white silica gel litter clings to cats paws and then they track it all over the house. We have wood floors, and two days after putting out the Pretty Litter box, I heard crunching sounds every time I walked near the box. I immediately bought a litter mat and that solved the tracking problem. So you’ll want to use this litter with some type of mat or you’ll be vacuuming Pretty Litter out of your carpets and off your floors.
Safety. I read a number of online comments alleging that Pretty Litter is dangerous to cats because it contains the same silica gel found in those little packing inserts labeled “Do not eat.” Those warnings are for children who might confuse the packets with candy. This video from Pretty Litter discusses the safety issue; silica gel, made from quartz, is no more dangerous to cats than other silica gel or clay litters (none of which should be eaten by cats). This article on litters from “Catnip,” the newsletter from Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, says, “Some cats don’t like the crystals because it can irritate their paws.” From a disposal viewpoint, silica crystals are a problem because they aren’t biodegradable or flushable—but neither are the extremely popular clumping clay litters. (You’ll need to buy one of the corn, wheat, walnut, wood, paper, or grass litters to reduce the volume of landfill waste.)
Longevity. Pretty Litter says one bag will last one cat for a month, and I found that to be true in my review. One bag fills an average 15-by-11-inch litter box. I scooped poop daily, mixed the urine back into the litter, and at the end of a month, it was still working.
Cat-Appeal. Here’s where we ran into some issues during our Pretty Litter review. Of my multiple cats, Tinkerbell is the only one of them who will use it (and she loves it!). My other cats looked, sniffed, and trekked off to the other end of the house, where we have clumping litter. But it turns out there are ways to deal with that.
Subscribe to Pretty LitterSelling Pretty Litter to Your Stubborn Cat
What do you do if your cat refuses to try the Pretty Litter (but could benefit from it)? The Pretty Litter folks suggest first isolating that cat in a room with a box of the stuff. Most cats will use the litter, even if it isn’t their favorite.
I tried some other tricks during my review. One was to dig a trench around the edges of the cats’ regular litter and fill that with Pretty Litter. The cats then stood on their familiar clumping litter and peed on the edging of Pretty Litter so I could check the color. This worked—but you have to move fast, before the cat digs up the litter and mixes it around (causing the color to disappear).
I also employed an inexpensive webcam that was triggered by motion. It told me every time a cat entered the box. This enabled me to tell which cat had used the box and whose leavings I was looking at!
Pretty Litter Review Final Thoughts
While I didn’t convince all my cats to use Pretty Litter on a regular basis during the review period, I did convince myself to subscribe to it! I’d initially canceled my subscription to test the ease of cancellation but then started it again (for one cat) because Tinkerbell enjoys it so much. It’s great to have litter delivered (in case we run short of our other litter) and it’s very handy to have around in case I get worried about the health of one of the other cats. With Pretty Litter in the house, it would be easy to isolate one cat and check the urine results before making a trip to the vet.
Further Reading
- 10 Automatic Cat Litter Boxes for Happy Cats
- Sifting Through the Best Litter for Your Kitty—and Your Home
- Get the Scoop on the Best Covered Cat Litter Box
Featured image via Manja Vitolic/Unsplash