Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Several weeks ago, I switched to the grocery store brand clumping litter from a non-clumping type. Last night I came home I noticed that Smokey was limping and had trouble jumping up onto his favorite perch. When I looked at his paws, I noticed some rather large clumps of hardened litter matted into the fur between his pads. To remove these, I soaked his paws for about 40 seconds (all I could manage) and cleaned them a little...again its all I could manage. My kitty is throroughly angry with me now. But he's not limping anymore. I think this is happening because smokey likes to play with his water and any litter that is in between his paws softens, then sticks together and hardens. It just built up over a few week period of time. I'm going to go back to the other kind of litter now.

nm

Since your kitty seems to like to play in water before using the litterbox, it is probably a very good idea not to use clumping litter. Glad you are on your toes!