Inspired by watching my cat lay on her 6’ (2 m) tall cat tower and sleep like a baby. Zero regrets, even if it makes us look like insane cat people for having a giant cat tower right in our living room. She lives here, she gets furniture too!
A self-cleaning litterbox. Absolutely worth it.
Which one specifically?
I got the litter robot. I’ve had it 9 months. I have a cat that loves to dig and the rubber liner doesn’t look like it’s going to hold up for more than 2 years because she scratches the same spot relentlessly, but I still love it. I’d buy a new one every other year if I needed to.
I have one too and it’s been great. They sell replacement parts including the rubber liner if you need one soon: https://www.litter-robot.com/litter-robot-4-globe-liner.html
Awesome, thanks for sharing! I ordered my free replacement. Glad I got the 3 year warranty.
Same here. It’s a very painfully expensive purchase but now that we’ve had one, I’d pull that trigger again in a heartbeat if something happened to this one. I wish it was easier to deep clean but otherwise it is fantastic. We have three cats and empty the bin probably twice a week, still waaaay better than scooping. And the really prissy cat likes her clean litter.
Medical care. Worth it.
Came here to say:
- thyroid medication
- obstruction surgery
- cancer surgery and treatment
- cardiology to treat dilated cardiomyopathy.
Probably cost $25k over the years. I’m extremely grateful our pet insurance covered 80-90% of that.
Dude just turned 10 and he’s healthy and happy enough to start treating his arthritis.
Bought an automatic door opener (the type for handicapped people in wheelchairs) so the dogs can come and go as they please to/from the back yard. I setup infrared sensors inside and outside near the dogs level (off to the side outside) and they quickly figured out how to open the door on their own.
Was like $600 but man was it worth it! Never have to worry about them being locked in or pestering me to go out. My big dog also gets a huge kick out of sneaking up on the pool guy and barking at him (just once!) when he’s not looking 🤣
6’ cat wheel. Did not run on it once. Drove it two hours to a friend’s house.
$250
My friends’ cats use theirs. I think they started getting them to by luring them with treats.
Our cats use it to beg for treats. Very rarely do I see them on it and not meowing for attention.
An AirTag for my wife’s cat, along with a collar holder. She’s an indoor cat but REALLY wants to get out. We got it after reports of coyotes roaming around and attacking small pets.
One time she darted out a sliding door window, we tried to track her down. Went all over the house, then outside. Ended up driving all over the neighborhood. Nothing. Turned out the whole time she was hiding under a car, 20ft from where she got out.
Confidence in the tech is low.
Airtags don’t work that well for tracking cats since it needs other iPhones nearby to send the location.
We were waving iPhones feet away from the tag. It didn’t get picked up so we wandered out to the neighborhood.
My guess is, to preserve battery, iPhones wake up and scan for nearby AirTags only X seconds at a time (don’t have actual numbers, but guessing somewhere between 30-120 seconds). Whatever AirTag ID they pick up, they send anonymously to the cloud along with location. If the owner has the tag in lost mode and the ID matches, they get notified.
This means if you’re walking around with your phone and it hasn’t hit the scan window, you could miss the tag. This works in a high-density area like a city center with lots of phones waking up and scanning at different times, but not so much in low density places.
In that case, a GPS tag with cell modem might work better, but it’s a lot pricier and requires regular charging.
Our bird isn’t with us anymore, but years ago I bought her a special made backpack with mesh windows and some wooden perches inside it so I could take her outside. It was excellent.
For the first 80% of your comment, I was definitely picturing a small backpack on the bird, and I was wondering what the purpose of tiny perches would be.
Apparently the squishmallows I got her are an obscene show of wealth, according to my family and her doggy daycare. I got them for like $10 each from Costco. She is a texture gal and always squishes and kneads her toys so I knew she’d love squishmallows. She sleeps with her head pushed onto one every night.
That sounds absolutely adorable!
Probably just their grooming every 2-3 months, which has gotten VERY expensive as inflation has made groomers’ lives hell and they’ve had to pass on those costs.
But, 100% worth it. My pups seem to know how good they look and love strutting around and getting attention from passersby on our walks.
LitterRobot 3 – Died after a year… I am not spending money on repairing it as I think the design is fundamentally flawed (DFI system gets pee and litter in it by design and fails). LitterRobot 4 fixes SOME of the issues but I am not dropping that much money on another robot litter box…
I loved not having to scoop so regularly and the immediate clean cycle actually made the litter last longer with just a few top ups.
I have purchased two cat fountains, both died in like 6mo of use even with filters and careful cleaning. Cats loved them and they were purchased because they were not drinking enough… Found out all I needed was a CHEAP larger diameter bowl as their whiskers were touching the edges and that is why they didn’t drink much from other bowls.
I believe they’ve fixed the DFI issue, the new one I got maybe a year ago is a different design, with less components and they appear to be sealed. Hasn’t failed yet, fwiw.
If it makes you feel any better about it, I’ve had the LR4 for almost 2 years without issues. Easily the best quality of life improvement for both my cats and me. Even unpowered (extended power outage), I found it more convenient because I could scoop and put it directly into the waste drawer.
It felt ridiculous when I bought it, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat if needed because of the benefits.
Expensive in time and labor, moderately expensive in costs. I built a set of floating shelves that went up around a corner, to a ledge at the top of a big window, and off another way for a cat-only path to the second floor. And it was designed to fit the design of the rest of the room.
It was a lot for a rental I only lived in for two years, but worth it for how much my cat enjoyed it.
Our older dachshund has really severe separation anxiety when my mom is out of the house.
We got him a puppy. Who has separation anxiety from me.
Bilateral TPLO surgery on my cat’s back legs. It put my wife and I in debt.
And 2 litter robots.
Bilateral TPLO surgery
I see that you love your kitty (2 LRs, maybe multiple kitties?) the proper amount and I nod to you in quiet solidarity.
2 on the same cat. The vet said she only needed one right now but that the other leg was going to need it in a year or two, and it would be cheaper to do them both at the same time. The post surgery aftercare was rough. We had to keep her locked in a dog cage with a litter box and a small bed for 10 weeks to heal. At the follow-up, the vet said her legs were looking better than she could have hoped for because we actually stuck to the aftercare. Now, the little turd has to be on medication, or her gi flares up, and she throws up several times a day every day.
Behold the rotisserie chicken herself
Poor baby. I’m so glad she has someone who cares as much as you do.
This dog bed: https://bigbarker.com/
Got it with the waterproof protector and an extra cover so I can wash one at a time easily. Totally worth it, I could sleep on this thing its so comfy.
and I second the auto feeder thing. completely changed my relationship with my first cat
Is there such a thing as autofeeders for wet food?
yes, they just have a smaller capacity.
Litter Robot. But, if I’m being honest, I bought it for myself.
I got it on the recommendation of a family member. 9 outta 10 would recommend. It gets stuck once in a great while and doesn’t sort the litter / feces, requiring mild intervention. Game changer because one of our kitties stopped burying (I think because she’s a Maine Coon and was bad at it due to size constraints in the old litter box, despite having the largest available).
