All I can say is, good luck! I hope it works out!

Your fan and mom to three cats (one of whom also has pooping issues),

Lisa

PS. Also, first? Yay!

Have you advised the cats about the changes in poopage?? I never flush the "flushable" stuff. With one cat, maybe. I don't think my plumbing could take 6 cats' worth of pee- and poopage. My plumbing can barely take my husband's!!!

Stupid otters!!! (just kidding, I promise)

"you will immediately declare to ANYONE in a five-mile radius that AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I WILL NEVER PATRONIZE THIS BUSINESS AGAIN."

Hahahaha! This is so me...

Your patronage alone would have eventually covered their cost of stickering the bags for California sales... well, their loss.

Is it just me... or did they not even address the issue you wrote to them about? To me that email reads "Wow! Thanks for your interest in our product! Sucks to be you! Try these instead!!". You should totally form a knit-it at City Hall.

Poor little sea otters, though. With their big eyes and twitchy whiskers and them being allergic to cat poop and all.

My cat, Fatbert (she has eating issues) doesn't really care about the kitty litter situation, as she'll poop precisely anywhere she feels like it unless the litter tray smells of roses and freesias, but she thinks Bob is way cute.

Your blog is great and my friend Joan and I think you should come out drinking with us when you're in London. Our friend Alfredo from Yorkshire is showing some of his art in a gallery in LA at the moment which has a live canary in it. Perhaps you should take Bob, to distract him from the pooping situation.

OMG, the first line alone.....

"first a correction: it is not something in our litter which required the stop sale, but a problem with the sea otters."

Ohhh Mr. Crap On Sand, CEO, sooo sorry sea otters DYING are causing you a problem.

If I was a sea otter, or if I knew a Sea Otter, he would be getting bitch slapped for breakfast with soggy kelp!

What about the "Underground Cat Litter Railroad?" I think someone named Harriet runs it.

Sorry about the double post. I think you mentioned that you did extensive research on litter before picking the current one but have you tried Nature's Miracle litter? It doesn't seem as dusty or nasty as all the ones I've tried before and I have 4 cats. It even smells good for the first couple of days.

"There are customers for whom we produce which is available in CA. Please visit Petco and look for the Nature's Miracle brand"

OK - this seems to indicate that they produce Nature's Miracle - is it the same formulation? Did they go to business letter writing school? Because their letter is not for making the sense.

Just my 2...

Ha! Laurie I'm so with you. I'd boycott 'em too except my cats are so happy just to *have* litter (we did toilet training for a while) that I can pretty much use anything that makes me happy. Funny how the cheap, hard clumping, good smelling multi-cat stuff is what makes me happy.

So the 3 litters he mentioned are not the same cat litter, sold under different labels? That is what I understood from his email response.

I also do not think he was of the english letter business making writing so much.

I am also very perplexed by the selection.

I need coffee.

I too loved "a problem with the sea otters." Really, people. A sticker on a bag. 54 million potential customers.

I think what Norm is trying to tell you is that these other brands are the same stuff under different labels. If you have reason to know, through your extensive market research in this area, that he is full of, er, baloney, by all means email him back.

I would not dream of suggesting that you package up That Which Must Not Be Flushed and send it to good old Norm.

Okay, well can they use the money they're saving by not being fined to hire someone WHO CAN WRITE A DAMN EMAIL? Come. On.

They are just down the road. Well, within an hour or so. Just saying. There's no yarn stores over there, though.

If Mr. Norm Peiffer had his thinking cap on, he might consider the number of potentially new customers he would receive nationally with a mere sticker negotiation. Check out the numbers. CAP's blog is read by 100's of people, many of them cat owners, cat lovers or relatives and friends of same. Come on, Norm. Not only would you regain (hopefully) a valuable and loyal customer, but one small measure could reap you great rewards in sales. And that's just being a good businessman--forget about compassion and understanding.

Damn those California otters. If they weren't so cute, this wouldn't be an issue.

That is just lame. They won't change the bag art? What would that cost them? Less than a penny a bag? That is a big ol' hearty whatever on them.

Of course...I saw this on your blog yesterday, then I saw an ad for this litter on TV so now I have to check it out for myself. Any kind of litter that is flushable sounds like a dream come true.

I would not personally want to swim in cat poop, since I have two cats and am way too familiar with it as it is, so I'm going to have to side with the otters. BUT you'd think they'd FIX THE SEWAGE SYSTEM instead of saying "all the sewage we flush into the ocean will now be cat-poop free!" and calling it solved.

I mean, honestly. As if other kinds are ok to swim in??!

Waitaminnit? There are lawbreakers everywhere, of course, but could they not just say "DO NOT FLUSH" on the bag? (Or is that the sticker everyone's asking for?) I'm with Liz R -- even though Evangeline tries to be ladylike and make delicate poops, Lilliane thinks it's a challenge and tries to make bigger ones (she's about 2/3 the size of Ev). And my litter says I can flush it but my plumbing says "Uhn uhn".

On the other hand, I'm glad to hear you guys are taking care of your otters.

sea otters? they are having a laugh.

i am right with you - i hope you emailed this post to Norm!

This guy is an asshat. what a great way to keep customer relationships. I love the first line "Laurie, first a correction:..." what a horrible way to start off a response letter. I would write him back thanking him for his "kind" suggestions and telling him that you and many more cat owners will be taking their business elsewhere.

A friend and I were talking about this yesterday...does California not TREAT ITS SEWAGE??? That is supposed to remove all the ickies from the water, people! Do they just flush all the poo into the ocean? OK, that's nasty and I don't think I'll be swimming there any time soon.

A forthright disdain for idiocy is always a good thing; I, too, have been known to become loud and dramatic in public when I feel the idiots closing in! Just remember, there's more of them than us sensible folk and it's a losing battle.

Oh.My.God. This TOTALLY something I would have to send at least a dozen more emails about filled with outrage over the injustice of it all. My family calls me the "Email Queen" because I am always sending an email to someone about something just like this. I once stopped patronizing one of my favorite stores because they refused to give me a refund for a coffee mug I purchased there as a gift and then found something else I liked better. Their excuse was that "the computer isnt set up to do refunds". Huh? For God's sake open the register and just give me my $5.00 back! It was the principal of the thing!

It seems that the problem is not the flushable litter but the inability to treat sewage before it ends up in the ocean! Perhaps the Governor should concentrate on that. Who knows what kinds of other problems untreated feces are causing??

And you are not alone with the indignation, I too have felt it!!

Hey, I have a story about righteous indignation AND pooping! We walk our dog in a park a few miles from our house and if we go around 4:30, there is a couple walking 2 sheepdogs. They are an older couple and from seeing them almost daily for months now, I can tell you that they are rather uptight. (Other dog walkers confirmed this for me.)

Now what makes me righteously indignant is that I keep seeing this jackass let his dogs poop all over the place without picking it up. Come on, dude! There are dog waste stations all over the place! You've let your dog poop right next to one! I'm trying to get up the nerve to offer him some of our bags when we see it or to put a nasty note on his car because he's giving dog people a bad name, you know? "Oh, those crazy dog people, never picking up after their dogs!" Now I'm getting all annoyed again.

Meanwhile, saving the sea otters? That is the weirdest excuse I've ever heard.

I have recently declared to both UPS and my local video rental store that I will NEVER patronize their business again. I also told UPS that I will not patronize any mail order business that uses their services. I guess I can only order downloadable things now... bummer.

Ahhh man what the hell is wrong with that company?! They are going to loose some serious business not selling it in California. How hard is it to put on a sticker that states "DO NOT flush litter in the State of California"? Guess it might be time for operation kitty litter.

In his convoluted way, I think he said that the brands he named are produced by his company. But it's kind of hard to tell wtf he meant. I hope that was it.

Good luck with the test boxes. We feel y'all's pain.

LOL I had an issue years back and I sent several emails to a certain bookseller that I would never patronize them again. Then they built a store in my city. drive out the local booksellers, now if I were to want an alternative, I would have to drive at least 25 miles. I now have their cutomer loyalty card. Does this make me a bad person?

This is *SO* a cosmetic labeling issue. I looked up Nature's Miracle (if it's the same company, I SWEAR by their cleaning product for, um, animal accidents), and here is the product description from Big Online Pet Product Retailer:

"Made from natural corncob granules that immediately absorb over two times the volume of traditional clay litter. Flushable, 99.9% dust free and will not irritate cuts and wounds."

Does that, or does it not, sound exactly the same as the Litter That Is Banned In CA? And note the "flushable" in the ad copy. Is it just me, or is Norm's e-mail as devoid of logic as it is of syntax?

BTW this reminds me of the pushing of another of my cat-hot-buttons the other day - the fact that a certain Big National Supermarket Chain has just stopped carrying the only brands of cat food they had that were not chock-full of CAT POISON. In this instance you can't really blame the chain for the fact that people don't realize that what's good in the litter is deadly in the food. Oh, don't get me started. Or do. I blogged about it, of course: http://www.tsocktsarina.com/blog/?p=52, AKA CORN WILL KILL YOUR CAT. (I probably need to get a life.)

I agree with Dale-Harriet on the "DO NOT FLUSH" instructions. It says do not flush, then don't do it. It's the consumer's misuse of product. Yes, people are concerned about the deaths and lives of otters, but make it a news announcement and send out memo insertions with products. That would be a must better suggestion than just isolating an entire state's consumers.

I get indignant all the time. That is why I no longer shop at: any Wal-Mart (for 5 years), the Einstein Bros. near my office, and Starbucks (they don't recycle their plastic milk containers).

OK. Let me just take a few breaths.

First: After reading the Time article about sea otters & sewage, it would appear that cats are infected by the "bug" by eating an infected bird or rodent. Most cats who use the litterbox are exclusively INDOOR cats, and therefore would have very minimal access to eating infected critters. I would be much more concerned about the millions of outdoor and homeless cats that ARE eating said critters and then pooping outdoors where said poop could be washed into storm sewers, etc.

Second: To paraphrase Judy above, DOESN'T EARTH-FRIENDLY, GREEN HEAVEN CALIFORNIA TREAT IT'S SEWAGE??? Yucko.

Third: If California is so concerned about toxoplasmosis in its waters, shouldn't they be warning pregnant women (who are highly susceptible) from swimming in the ocean?

Fourth: Mr. Peiffer needs an editor. Ugh.

Fifth (and finally): Stickers, people. Sheesh.

I don't know if someone suggested this already, but what about having your parents send it to you? If you ship it on Amtrak, it's cheap. You would still have to pay extra shipping and maybe your mom will get busted by the kitty poop narcs, but maybe it's worth it to make Roy happy? And as for inconveniencing your parents - well, they are blood... ;) Or...this place is in WI - I'm in IL - and going to L.A. next week...I could put it on the train...I'm not afraid...

I am with Faith and others on this.

"There are customers for whom we produce which is available in CA." What the heck does that mean, Norm? Also, Norm, you spelled the word "Arm" wrong.

I am boycotting too! (Not much of a sacrifice since I don't have cats, but that is not the point, right?) =)

Fucking sea otters.

It sounded to me like Norm was telling you the sell the exact same litter in different boxes at nearby stores. Since it's just a bag labeling issue (i.e., can't use the word flush in the title) it seems like it might be okay to just buy the Nature's Miracle brand or any of the others he mentioned (might save on shipping to). I get the drama thing (I am also quite dramatic - runs in my family). But I would check out the other brands to see if I could still get the same thing in a different box.

I've been having a freak out because they changed something in the Tidy Cats clumping Crystals cat litter and my cats are tracking it across the basement floor (aka across my laundry because the laundry chute right there), up the basement stairs and into the kitchen. This does not make me happy.

i'm prone to drama. i quite enjoy it, actually.

and yes, you have to think of everything.

:) sizz

No, it's not just you...I am also prone to fits of indignation about poor service and incompetence. :)

And poor grammar. "There are customers for whom we produce which is available in CA"? What kind of a sentence is that? A badly written one, that's what kind. I wouldn't buy their stickerless product anymore either. *snaps fingers*

Good luck with the Hunt for a New Pooping Surface!

Good grief. With all the money he's saving by not sticking two-cent labels on his bag (would it ruin his "art work?") maybe he can hire a 6th-grade girl to proofread his business correspondence. Perhaps she could advise him to try being polite to the people who keep him in business, too. Maybe she could even encourage him not to blame his bad decisions on sea otters.

The other brands he mentions are not identical to each other, so it's safe to suppose they are not identical to the litter you've been using. Maybe you should just try potting soil. It's cheaper than kitty litter, and, to my dismay, cats seem to love it, at least when it's outside.

Now I have to go research which state legislator decided telling people to carry bags of waste down several flights of stairs, several times a day, is better than fixing the whole raw-sewage-reaching-the-ocean thing.

I think that he's trying to tell you that the Nature's Miracle is the same brand under different packaging. Maybe? Personally, my cats and I hated World's Best Cat Litter--despite it claiming to be "dust free", the cats tracked corn dust all over the house. Swheat Scoop and Dr. Elsey's Precious Cat works best for this household. I would think that if you're willing not to flush the Clump n Flush that having someone ship it to you from outside Cali would be a good solution.

Good luck!

Also, toxoplasmosis can survive our current sewage treatment system, it's not just about the raw sewage.

Y'know, after reading this I looked at the fancy bags we'd just bought to pick up the dog poop with. The bags say, "100% biodegradable" and then in tiny print "except in California." Something tells me this is related. Like someone would flush the plastic poop bags? Anywhere? Laws or not, that's one mess I wouldn't want to unclog! :P

Fight on!

Stupid sea otters. They are so not worth your cats' poop.

You are not the only one. My parents have a very long list of restaurants they will never go to again, and as for me, Best Buy can KISS MY ASS!! They have no idea how much money they lost because they would not let me return $15 headphones 4 days past the return policy window.

Viva la Circuit City!!

I think this is all very funny since I cannot even flush the litter! I live in a very old house. There are ancient pipes in my house. I can barely flush kleenex LOL.

So there is already proper waste disposal happening at Feline Mansion. I'm thinking I may have to throw in the towel and finally move to Paris... heh.

sure blame the otters.

Move to Paris? I'll come with you! The cats would so love the City of Lights.

i know what they're really afraid of.

two words:

ninja otters.

also, shellfish shurikens.

Aw, now, don't dump on the sea otters (as it were). Maybe the toxoplasmosis virus is especially resistant to whatever chemicals/processes are involved in sewage treatment?

I don't use the clumping stuff myself, but I don't know that I would trust my septic system to handle it.

We had many a cat when I was young and still living with Mommy and Daddy but we never had a litter box. We was mean to our poor kitties and we made them go outside like the dogs.

So I promise if I ever get a cat I will not buy Clump 'n Flush litter and I will tell everyone I know not to buy it either.

BAN Clump 'n Flush!!!!
Save an otter!

Bob looks like he is smiling an evil-genius smile. I think it was his plan all along, just to watch you get all dramatical.

I guess I'm the only one who thinks this is due to following the laws of California and not the fault of the cat litter company.

I, too, think that Mr. Peiffer was an a$$ in the email to you. The excuse about the otters made me curious, though, and I did a little Google search and found this: http://cats.about.com/cs/parasiticdisease/a/seaotters.htm in which this is said:
"Sewage Treatment Plants: These plants traditionally treat sewage to kill harmful bacteria, remove the waste solids, and pump the resultant "safe" effluent directly into a freshwater source that eventually drains into ocean bays. Unfortunately present means of sewage treatment do not kill the T. Gondii parasite. Cat owners using flushable litters, may be unwittingly contributing to the ultimate deaths of sea otters."

I figured it had something to do with this parasite.
Well, good luck with the search for a new litter. I have recently had a kitty poopage scare and was concerned that I might also have to research new litters. Luckily (or unluckily) it was a food issue with an expensive solution. *grin* Good thing they are our only children!!

Dianne, I think that the company is not at fault in one sense -- the state made this ban -- but since they could remedy it by adding a STICKER to the BAG, seems like they might want to do that? right? so as not to alienate the most populated state in the union?

I think that is the mind boggling part. They don't have to re-formulate or even change the name or the packaging or anything at all, just slap a sticker on the bag and yet... they will not do it because they are...? mad? at California? at sea otters?

I like sea otters. I like California. I like this cat litter. So can we get a sticker? please? so easy. I will even design it for you to match the bag, because I am a giver.

It will be poo-shaped.

In my family we call it the "No More Bananas in THIS House" syndrome. When I was a kid there was zilch counter space in the kitchen and fruit was kept in a cupboard beside the sink. At some point Dad would go to the fruit cupboard and find brown bananas--and go into a complete meltdown and holler "There'll be no more bananas in this House". We would all scamper to the kitchen and quickly grab a brown banana and eat it--either mushed up with milk, or smeared on bread. I still prefer brown bananas--out of righteousness? I did one of those on the cable company when they hiked the rates and eliminated certain channels from the package. Cancelled cable in a snit. Then what!!?!! Got satellite--not that great because it doesn't work in bad weather, and local channels were blacked out. Now, 3 years later, I have slunk back and re-ordered cable. And I give them this--they didn't sniff and say "Toldyaso".

I would also like to take this moment to personally than all the folks who actually read the comments... hehehehe. I heart you. Ya'll are invited to all come over and have wine.

I agree with tsocksarnia about the poison in most grocery store cat food. Corn nearly killed my sweet boy Puddy. Now he only eats Eukanuba because the first three ingredients are not corn. I cringe at the Purina ads that I see knowing how sick a cat can get!
I am lucky that mine all poop outdoors. I prefer that they poop at the "crazy lady" house next door.... sometimes I win.

Laurie, could you please educate us non-Californians as to what the heck is up with the whole "not treating the raw sewage" thing? I remember a looooooong time ago, my uncle said that when he lived there, some of the beaches were contaminated and off limits due to raw sewage and things like needles washing up on shore. But, like I said, that was a looooooong time ago, haven't they figured out what the rest of the country knows? WATER TREATMENT PLANTS?!? I also think you should just buy it and have a family member or friend from out of state ship it to you. And then, just don't flush. Simple, right? For the kitties sake, you know. Good luck!

Oops. I thought I HAD read all the comments. Geez! I missed the ones that already said what I said. Heehee!

Laurie, you probably don't realise how many people you just invited over. lol. what time and what can I bring (besides some cat litter)? :)

Several years ago, I loudly announced I would never shop at a certain pharmacies again... They were rude, gave incomplete information and, for three months in a row, filled my son's prescriptions incorrectly (mostly due to their error the first of those three months!). I have not been back and never will. It takes a bunch to get me there, but, living true to the Taurus within me, I'm bullish on sticking with my pronouncements! :)

Ok, I think my head is hurting a little from trying to understand all of this... is the whole problem with the name/trademark/brandname? I guess it would be difficult to sticker it to read 'Clump and Flush Only If You Live In Any State Except California TM'. But but but but... no, I still don't understand it.

righteous indignation is a good thing from time to time. every once in a while, it'll get you free stuff. hope your poopy party gets better soon.

laurie: just think of all the money you'll save from shipping and handling if they make the same crap (pun totally intended), relabel it, and it's at Petco. silver lining, mayhap?

i also love the implication: "Cat poop isn't okay to swim in, but human poop is A-Ok. *big thumbs up*"

Jules -- there is a lot of info at healthebay.org about the state of California's beaches. But if you think about it, we have a giant city right on the edge of the water, and all the storm drains get flushed out to the ocean. All the cigarette butts and dog poo and road oil and everything gets washed off to the ocean, and after a rain the beaches are a toxic sludge... since it doesn't rain a lot here it all gets flushed into the water at once.

Gail: I think the package just needs a sticker with a disclaimer on it "Do not flush in California."

*
I love you, Bob !

*

They should at least act like they care! Too bad Nordstrom doesn't sell kitty litter ...

Ok, so I may be seeing this whole thing incorrectly, but I'm not sure that just slapping a sticker on the bag would work. For everyone who has used that litter for the past howevermany years, they will disregard the sticker and keep on flushing. It would most likely take an entire redesign and new name to get people to not flush. And how would everyone know that the old clump 'n flush that they used to use is now clump 'n doNOTflush? The company would have to get a whole new fan base, and apparently they decided it's not worth it.

I do think that this is disappointing, since I get that this is the ONLY litter in the whole united states that works, but I see the company's side of this, too. That's all I'm saying.

Carry on. :)

Oh lordy!
I used to use the Clump N Flush (I also have a delicate cat- ok, I have 4 indoor cats, but only that one is really picky about litter) and I wondered why I could no longer find it (I'm also in Cali). I ended up switching to just the cheapo- non-clumping kind. I think it's Tidy Cat Long Lasting or some such nonsense. Good luck finding something that works for you- don't forget to try the cheapo brands, too.
I don't comment much, but I enjoy reading you blog. Every morning, and evening, as I smear medication on my mangy cat- I think of you and all of your cat dramas. I'm thankful that these medications are not orally administered- or worse! ;)

I'm with Faith. Check out those other brands. Seems like they produce them. Worth a try.

Oh, and I prefer Merlot... ;o)

xo

After looking at your clump & flush on the website, I went and looked at Swheat Scoop (which is flushable), which is what I use, and there was no disclaimer saying it wouldn't ship to California. Would that be an option? I assume you have tried it since you say you've tried everything. It might be a bit too dusty, if that is a problem for your cats.

Does this mean they are going to stop selling ALL flushable cat litters now? I consider myself an environmentalist so I used flushable, but I don't want to be an Otter Killer??!?!

Yes - this is like the time Bossy's local chinese take-out place got her order all wrong and she had to schlepp everything back to the restaurant only to have THE LADY tell Bossy that she owed MORE money on the corrected order, and so Bossy announced to THE LADY and to the neighborhood at large that she would never - neh-ver - order take out from that chinese restaurant again! And so now Bossy makes her husband do it.

Laurie, why don't you make a sample sticker and fax it to them? I swear, it gets tiring trying to fix the world, doesn't it?

Don't you just hate it when they talk in code language?! I would try one of the brands he listed in his email.

I get dramatic too when I have been wronged by a company/store.

1. Does Norm pronounce his name PEE-FUR??

2. Does Bob like to poop crickets?

3. Hahahahahaha...a poo-shaped sticker!

Ha! I'm totally given to fits of righteous indignation and blanket statements like that. I once boycotted the new movie theater - with stadium seating and fresh nachos - near my house in such a fit and then had to drive 30 minutes to visit the older one just so that I wouldn't go back on my solemn vow.

Thanks for that information, Laurie. I had no idea about the depth of the problem. All I can think of is that long list of beach closings that I saw..."beach closed due to sewage spill", "beach closed to sewage spill", and on and on and on. To their credit, there WERE a lot of beaches that are safe and open, but still. It's scary to think about. I know I wouldn't ever want to swim there!

so what would keep someone from taking their cat poop and just throwing it into the ocean? that's what i want to know? not that i would do that.

want to hear a cute pooping story? my little black cat, sparky, got lucked in my home office/yarn room once (mostly yarn room) and spend probably 12 hours in there. when i got home, i heard her meowing and let her out. and noticed a foul poop odor. i investigated, and good little black kitty had pooped in a small empty cardboard box. sans litter.

i was very proud of her.

those damn otters, messing up the works. How thoughtless of them.
I don't see why they can't make a sticker. seriously. it's a sticker. keep it in perspective, people.
evidently,you do have to think of everything.

Give the Nature's Miracle (or store brand of the same) a try - I use it, and my cat seems to be fine with it. (She was peeing behind the couch, very bad. Cats should never, ever think outside the box.) Since it's the same company, it may be equally acceptable to Bob & Friends.

I'd guess that the corporation decided that since Clump & Flush's primary appeal is the flushing part, they don't want to change their entire marketing strategy.

I am very interested to know that they have a Walmart brand - that Nature's Miracle is $12 a bag!

Huh? I'm confooooozed: "There are customers for whom we produce which is available in CA."

Their produce (carrots, lettuce, etc.) is available in CA? They produce for certain, special customers who are available in CA?

Do they have a direct-order business? Could you send 'em some stickers yourself, and have them slap the stickers on the bags before mailing the bags?

wow.

at first i was totally confused, like, WHY DOES LAURIE WANT TO KILL THE SEA OTTERS???

but then i realized that you can use the litter without flushing it down the pipes of despair, and then formed a hatred toward this cheapass litter company.

why did they even bother writing, really?

Send all cats with issues to the coast for a week or so and point them at the sea otters.

You will have happy (and full) cats AND the litter can be then delivered in time to deal with all the.. um...re-consituted sea otter.

Just a thought.

no. wait.

NOW I'M REALLY ANGRY.

the company basically wrote you to ensure that you wouldn't blame THEIR COMPANY, just so that you'd hate SEA OTTERS and ohthatsright CALIFORNIANS? do they not get that you're one of them?

*seething*

Poo-shaped sticker. Hahahaha :)

"we decided not to redo our bag art for the sake of California"...um, hello? It's for the sake of the sea otters, which happen to live off the coast of California. Talk about bad public relations! More men in suits with their heads up their arses! Reminds me of the STR bank fiasco.

So, are the other brands they mention viable alternatives?

I hear ya on the righteous indignation. I won't fly United anymore because they wouldn't let me board a plane that was still at the gate, because the gate door was closed. All because the airport shuttle bus was slow as molasses getting me to my gate. So frustrating. Probably an over-reaction on my part, but I was fuming, at the time....

Oh, and when I went to city hall to fill out a form for absentee ballot voting, they told me that I couldn't fill it out in person -- I was told that the law said I had to take it home and either mail it or fax it back to them. I was dumbstruck. I finally said, "that's a really stupid law", and the woman was appalled that I would call any law "stupid". She actually said, "You're calling the LAW stupid???!!!" As if all laws are ordained by God or something....

poo shaped stickers.

I think we should mass market them, and ship them to crazy cat litter prezident.

Then tell him to put them on each order that goes to california, care of Bob The Cat, Frankie the Rosencat, Roy the Master of All Feline Ailments, and to the attention of Soba, the Supreme Empress of The Universe.

the end.

I totally hear you on boycotting businesses. Mostly recently I switched to the Jamba Juice three streets away because the one across the street made a big deal about honoring a coupon I printed off their web page. Dead. To. Me.

Hey Laurie,
Okay, I've checked this out, and first off, YES CALIFORNIA TREATS IT'S SEWAGE (we're not perfect, but we're pretty damn good about it. Although like the rest of the country, there's a lot of everyday toxins that we should outlaw that are wreaking havoc in our waters (fertilizers, industrial mercury, etc.)). We may have a rep. for being weird, flaky and legislatively difficult about cat litter but we're pretty concerned about our sea life.
And please- how hard is it to print out a sticker on Microsoft office and leave 'em in a pile for the temp to stick on the bags that ship to California? Hello???

Okay, the district that empties into the largest otter habitat has an old sewage plant that isn't screening out bacteria as well as the new state-of-the-art plants. And they think that this bacteria leakage is harming the otters. Check it out here: http://actionnetwork.org/surfrider/alert-description.tcl?alert_id=6372414
Take a look, sign it if you're eligible and see what we can do to update that sewage plant!!

Anyone want to call 'ole Norm?

The Andersons Inc.
P.O. Box 119 480 W. Dussel Dr. Maumee OH 43537
Contacts Mr. Norm Peiffer
Tel: 419-893-5050
Fax: 419-891-6539
Products: Pet liter & bedding made from corn cob, pine, and cedar. Grain, fertilizer wholesale/mfg, feed retail, seed, seed treating, farm supplies.

Okay, I Googled "cat poop" and "cat litter" to see if I would get a hit on your post. No luck, but I did find another corn cob litter product whose website states the following: *The State of California encourages the disposal of cat feces in trash and discourages flushing cat feces in toilets or disposing of them in drains.

Why can't good ol' Norm include a disclaimer on the Drs. Foster & Smith Website and print a disclaimer on the invoice or something?

BTW, here's a link to the cat litter with the disclaimer. Supposedly it's the "World's Best"...supposedly. Oh, and I searched the only CA zipcode I could remember and there are 5 places within 3 miles of 90210 that sell the stuff...

http://www.worldsbestcatlitter.com/products/world_best_cat_litter.php?PHPSESSID=ee483d881243dd64b356a90fa7fa0013

a couple of thoughts: yes, the email was crappy (pun intended) on several levels. yes, a sticker seems like a simple solution, but a "simple" solution from one perspective is often more complicated from another--businesses are always having to weigh the cost of doing business with the payoff of doing business. Honestly though, I would LAUGH & THEN BOYCOTT a cat litter product that implied by name and advertising that it was flushable but then had a disclaimer on its packaging saying "not flushable in California". That sort of illogical, contradictory bullshit irritates me enough that it WILL affect my buying decisions. It SOUNDS like Mr. Crappy Email may have been trying to say "our same product is legally available in California at this store under this brand name". It is not uncommon for brands to market the same product under different names or descriptions. There is a widely known headache remedy that has both a "regular" and a "migraine" formula--it is the SAME DAMN formulation & dosage. But labelling in this way increases their sales, obviously enough to compensate for the increased expense of two sets of packaging. Not all companies are able or willing to do this sort of thing.
We've got a situation here combining the mind-numbingness of business with the mind-numbingness of political legislation. And you'd better believe that our Great State of California is a PRO at making people jump through hoops to do business here, all while acting like it should be considered an honor and privilege to be allowed to do so. It is the arrogance of "WE are CALIFORNIA and therefore you should be KISSING OUR ASS" that makes the other 49 states roll their eyes at us.

Hoping you find an acceptable pooping surface for all involved. Our feline friends seem to hate change even more than humans do!

Who me? Boycott a business? In a heart beat and loudly. I am so boycotting Arby's in DT Mpls!

I sometimes think I am at my best when I am indignant.

Mr. Norm is not only semi-literate, he's also a crap businessman (pun intended). California is a MIGHTY big state with lots of cat lovers, and he's willing to forego the profits so he won't have to be bothered with making a sticker? Geez Louise, I work in the textbook industry, and you should see all the customized everything that we make for California. If California wanted us to make history books in 3-D with pink sparklies and dancing bears, we'd do it! What California wants, California gets. Why is the cat poop business any different?

Maybe it's being over 50 that accounts for my laid-backness (I think I just invented a word), but I am struck by how non-mainstream my reaction to this crisis compared to most of the posters here.

First I was impressed the company responded to you at all, much less within 24 hours. And when I read his explanation a light bulb went off: "Oh, I get it! How can you possibly market a product called called 'Clump and Flush' in a state with a no-flushing law?"

A litigious type person (and there must be one or two in your state) could reasonably argue that the name CLUMP AND FLUSH in big letters on the bag vs. a little sticker that says "except don't flush in CA" is confusing to the consumer. Confusing consumers exposes a manufacturer to legal hassles that often cost many times what they earned off the product to begin with.

The bottom line is I suspect they probably bailed on the sticker idea because the very name of the product specifically suggests doing something that is now illegal in CA.

On the bright side, I think what he was telling you is that the same product is sold to other retailers who market it under a different--and more politically correct--name in California.

Heck. Just email me your address and I'll buy some Clump and Flush here in Atlanta and ship it to you by UPS : -)

Okay, that Arm & Hammer product Norm mentioned also has a disclaimer about CA on their website...

IN CALIFORNIA, DO NO FLUSH OR PUT INTO DRAINS. PUT USED LITTER INTO THE TRASH

Oh, and that Nature's Miracle stuff he mentioned has a scent to it...

Hi Laurie,

I have been reading and enjoying your blog for about a month now. I can't believe that when I finally get the courage to comment it's regarding this rather delicate pooping issue. However, since I myself am owned by two cats, I can relate!

Here is a link for another type of clumping corn cob litter. Hopefully if the bag doesn't say "flush" you will be all set.

http://www.petmountain.com/product/bedding/510854/l-m-animal-farms-corn-cob-bedding-25lb.html

Have you checked at a local pet store if they have the clumping corn cob litter? It may not be in the kitty litter section, but rather in the hamster or rabbit sections where it is use as bedding. Good Luck!

"you will immediately declare to ANYONE in a five-mile radius that AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I WILL NEVER PATRONIZE THIS BUSINESS AGAIN."

I thought I was the only one who did this! When I start with the "As God Is My Witness..." my family usually turns red and exits! LOL

Ah, righteous indignation -- I'm the queen. I won't shop at Home Depot. Two years ago, when I was renting an apartment in an old Victorian house that still had the original windows, I was buying the shrink-wrap window plastic to keep out the cold, completely minding my own business when some smart-ass employee (guy with a big-ole beer gut, who actually had to look inside my cart as I walked by) said to me, "maybe you should buy new windows." I fired off an incensed email about how if I wanted their employees' opinions I would ask for them, and, that if they don't want to sell a particular product maybe they shouldn't carry it, and that the Lowe's less than a quarter mile down the road was much nicer anyway...etc. Haven't set foot in a Home Depot since. Don't piss me off... ;)

*giggle* I read all the comments, too, Laurie! They are like a bonus to your posts, icing on the cake. If I don't have time to read them all I go back the next day or two to catch up. You have some amazing fans! They make me laugh, cry and think!

My fat cat craps fat poop. Hm, say that three times fast! Anyway, I've tried different litters and his box only smells nice for a couple of days so I need to keep experimenting. What we won't do for the love of our kitties!

I think one of the previous commenters is right. Because the word flush is part of the actual product name, just sticking a little disclaimer sticker on it telling you not to flush probably would not satisfy the CA Attorney General's office. It would most likely run afoul of misleading product labeling laws.

The company could have explained that to you in a more diplomatic way.

Boy, he sounds like the typical executive here at Space Cadet Central. Only his English is better. Much better.

To all of you who complain about Norm's command of ye Englishe language: Welcome to the world of executives who have their secretaries run the spell checkers for them.

Happy sample pooping, Bob!

Are they saying that those other brands are the same product under a different (less expensive) name?? This could be good for you!

He'd rather blame the Otters than spend some money on stickers! Oh, yeah, hate this guy.

Love that Bob!

The lab supply idea is a great one...I was lurking on the Anderson site and I found the info for ordering Bed O'Cob from them and they have a product called LabFresh which is a litter made especially for labs (http://www.bedocobs.com/LabFresh.htm). Here's their ordering info (see below)

And I would call/email their customer service person (see below) and have her go over and bitch slap Norm...

To order:
E-mail to: coborders@andersonsinc.com
Phone: 866-234-0505 ext. 6511
Fax: 419-891-6539

Barbara Sample
Customer Service Manager
barb_sample@andersonsinc.com
Ph. 866-234-0505 ext. 6700
Fax 419-891-6539

Here's my confusion... they can't sell the litter b/c you might flush it down the toilet, right? But does California mandate what you, personally, can flush down the toilet?? I mean, you could be flushing whole KITTENS, not just their poo, down the toilet, and then what would happen? I mean, besides clogging and possibly kitten-style haunting and a horribly guilty conscience, I hope. Wouldn't the state's efforts be better spent in educating people what should and should not go in the water system?

And wouldn't Anderson, Inc.'s money be better spent hiring someone who can string a sentence together?

WTF, isn't the municipal waste disposal system supposed to CLEAN THE WATER before dumping it to the ocean? What about people poop? That seems pretty harmful to otters as well.

Maybe you can find some kind of hippie commune near L.A. that manufacturers their own all-natural non-dusty cat litter. I mean, hippies have cats too. Or maybe it's time to train the cats to go in the toilet (every time someone talks about that I laugh hysterically. Cats? toilet? hahahahaha)

I totally do the DON'T-PISS-ME-OFF thing and refuse to ever patronize them. There's a local dry-cleaner and laundromat that so annoyed me by not bothering to post their actual hours of operation (hell hath no fury like a woman with a basket full of dirty laundry) that I haven't ever been back. In related news, I cannot now enter a Craft Warehouse because of the one time I went in and they had shelves and shelves of tiny tiny bottles of tropical fish. Like, hardly enough room for them to straighten out, let alone swim. Am I weird? Fish breaking my heart?

Cats are so weird about their poop-sites. I once had a cat who loved to hang out in the back yard all day. He only came inside the house to use the litterbox.

I love reading the comments too :) I think this problem extends far beyond cat litter. People just don't care about people anymore. Not all people mind you, but the majority. Customer service is truely lacking. Companys just don't care anymore. And I'm SO glad that someone else in the world loathes UPS as much as I do. I sometimes feel like I have to bend over backwards, pull teeth and cry blood to get companies (such as UPS) to provide the service they are supposed to provide and that I'm paying for. It shouldn't be like this!! Theres a black market for banned items like this right?? If not we should start one.

OMG, I SWEAR to you, I dye laughing every time I read your blog...personally, although I feel bad for your cats and you, I am sooo totally glad the cat liter problem has occured cuz it's a hoot reading it.Looooveeeesss it LOL.

Let's take this letter step by step.

Laurie, first a correction: (not the way to start a customer-oriented letter) it is not something in our litter which required the stop sale, but a problem with the sea otters (what could possibly be the problem that the sea otters have? That they are exposed to T. Gondii and don't have immunity to it like cats and people?) and living off the coast of California (as opposed to?).

The California legislature has placed a ban on the sale of all flushable litters due to something (very specific. Thanks.) in the cat feces which is harmful to the otters.

Since we decided not to redo (really, redo?) our bag art (bag art? how about branding, maybe graphic design, recreate our packaging?) for the sake of California (California does not need your sake) and the risk of a fine is great (should there be some punctuation here? and also, perhaps,
"we would be fined by the state.") we have decided to not offer the product for sale in California (clear and concise - excellent!).

There are customers for whom we produce which is available in CA. (oh my god this sentence is screwed! Liz, help!!!) Please visit Petco and look for the Nature's Miracle brand, or the arm an Hammer High Performance label or at Wal Mart under the Fresh Results label. All the bags advise how to dispose of used litter properly.(laurie had no problem disposing of poop properly. Y'all have a problem with writing properly. If the issue was the way Laurie was disposing of poop, we'd have a wholly different issue here, now wouldn't we?)

Hope this helps!! (NOPE!)

I declare that I'll never patronize businesses again as long as I live whenever I'm wronged. I also do the "And I'm writing a letter to your manager/owner/corporate headquarters" when it is especially deserved and I think that it's a totally acceptable, reasonable way to handle certain situations. Then again, i'm a pretty dramatic person...

Fantastic comments all around, but I feel compelled (yes, compelled!) to point out that in Laurie's case, the clump'n'flush isn't being marketed or sold in California. It's being marketed and sold in Missouri.

Further, it's not illegal to sell or have flushable litter in California and it's not even illegal to flush it (it's just a d*mn good idea).

Here is all the code actually says (direct quote. sorry if it's long!):

'The Legislature further finds and declares that efforts to reduce the flushing of cat litter and cat feces are steps toward better water quality in the sea otters' natural habitat.
(b) Any cat litter offered for sale in this state shall contain one of the following statements:
(1) "Encouraging your cat to use an indoor litter box, or properly disposing of outdoor cat feces, is beneficial to overall water quality. Please do not flush cat litter in toilets or dispose of it outdoors in gutters or storm drains."
(2) A general statement that encourages the disposal of cat feces in trash and discourages flushing cat feces in toilets or disposing of them in drains.'

Andersons said, "California legislature has placed a ban on the sale of all flushable litters"
No, it hasn't. They don't want to sell something with "flush" in its name, fine.

But if it's a good idea not to flush in California to help the water situation, it's a good idea everywhere. And corn cobs---recycling---happy sea otters---this is all good.

Anderson's "about us" section is all about ethics, diversity, protect the environment, etc. I say, challenge that company to do better than "we don't want to change the bag art"!

-Stephanie

Best comment award goes to Big Alice for:

"I mean, hippies have cats too."

hehehehehehehehe

I just want to say how grateful I am that my cats aren't too particular. They actually prefer the cheapest clay litter available. I do not, for all the reasons all of us owned by cats-with-litter-boxes understand. Can't use the pine--a previous kitty had a life-threatening allergy to pine. Couldn't use anything granular (including the wheat), because it stuck to the raw skin caused partly by the previously mentioned allergy. We ended up with one made from recycled paper, in the shape of tiny log-like things. AND THE OTHER CATS ACCEPTED IT. It's clean, controls odor fairly well, doesn't track, and has very low dust. The manufacturer claims you can use it for compost. Still can't see how that would be a good idea, but there ya go. If anyone is interested, it's called "Yesterday's News".

OMG Stephanie you rock, because I was actually starting to get really confused!

Thank you!!

Oh, I also love this one, from e.:

"I mean, you could be flushing whole KITTENS, not just their poo, down the toilet, and then what would happen?"

Oh God, I am literally laughing out loud at work. Ya'lls comments are too funny!!! You are funnier than I am. I retire!!

Here we have the great cat litter controversy of 2007!!! Makes me so proud :)

p.s. and special thanks to the reader who emailed me with the subject line:

"Fur Turd Factoid"

What about the people who have potty-trained their cats? Seriously my PetSmart sells this gadget that you attach to the toilet so the cats learn to pee & poop right into the pot. Are the Californians going to outlaw that? (Frankly I think my cats would laugh at me if I even tried to potty-train them.)

I'm all about the righteous indignation, though. A couple of years ago I was in Kroger and I saw a box of "New!" Frosted Rice Krispies....not marketed as "New Formula!" or "New and Improved!", just plain "New!". Now child of the 80s that I am , I know I grew up eating Frosted Rice Krispies. Snap, Crackle, and Pop were wearing scarves and hats in the picture on the box. I can remember it well. My grandpa and I ate the cereal together.
I was so mad that I wrote Kellog's about their false advertising. They didn't write back. So now I don't eat any version of Rice Krispies.

I love the sea otters---if you promise to not flush the flush and clump, I'll UPS a package to you too.

so - i just noticed that there are over 1800 bloglines subscribers to this here blog - and a lot of us own cats - so why don't we write norm and suggest he put a sticker on his product... i think 1800 emails would get his attention... anyone else?

UGH!! I'm sorry about the non-response you got! I never openly declare that I'm never coming back when a business pisses me off. I'm just one of those people who disappears. Apparently I am the type of customer that strikes fear into the hearts of businesses who actually give a whit. Perhaps I ought to learn to externalize...

Regarding Rhett's suggestion, I'm sure I can work up the gumption to add an email to his box.

Poor Norm, he probably thought he was writing to same crazy cat lady... oh wait. Guess he was right. heh heh ;)

I am going to admit right here and now there is one litter I actually have NOT tried, and that is the walmart brand he mentioned. I have never even seen it. But then again we have one walmart near me, and it is in the 'hood, so I have been to a walmart maybe twice in the past five years. I guess I'll stop by there this weekend and see if they have it.

Oh, and I am SO SO happy that others have the big Scarlett O'Hara "I shall never shop here again" thing going. Whew!!

Looks like you don't *really* have to worry about the otters. The CDC says:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/toxoplasmosis/factsht_toxoplasmosis.htm

Once infected with Toxoplasma is my cat always able to spread the infection to me?

No, cats only spread Toxoplasma in their feces for a few weeks following infection with the parasite. Like humans, cats rarely have symptoms when first infected, so most people do not know if their cat has been infected. The infection will go away on its own; therefore it does not help to have your cat or your cat's feces tested for Toxoplasma.

So; assuming that you don't feed your cats raw food, and they don't go outside, you won't be killing marine life with any T Gondii.

Find something flushable, and go to it, I say.

Oh, sorry... brain got distracted. Anyway, having spent three years in the legal department of corporate hell, I agree with your other readers who think Norm is trying to tell you the brands he mentions are also manufactured by his company.

Hi Laurie,

I make no apologies for the letter writer and i don't own a cat, but here's my legal $.02. The company can't just put a sticker on the flushable litter bag because what would it say? "Okay, it's flushable, but don't flush it in California. Wink, wink"?! Nah, they'd still get fined. He may have been sneakily telling you to use their other products, which may not be labled for flushability, but which are made out of the same stuff your critters know and love and upon which they will happily poop. But again, he couldn't advise you as such in so many words because the company would risk getting fined.

Freakin' sea otters, ruining it for everyone! They're like quadruped spotted owls with whiskers! I wonder if you can knit with their thick brown fur. . .

Ok...so if he REALLY wants to keep you as a customer for one of the 'other' brands they sell...the LEAST they could do is send you lots of coupons (or even one really!) for you to 'try' each of those other brands! You shouldn't have to go broke trying to find an acceptable pooping surface for the cats because they don't want to change their bags!

Also, you may have tried this, or had it suggested already, but I would recommend using your remaining 'banned' litter mixed with whatever new litter you decide upon...start out with a really high concentration of the bad stuff and slowly change the mix so that it's mostly the new litter...maybe the cats won't notice the change as fast!

The heck with knitting with otter fur. Use it to line your litterbox.

I'm sorry, I know that person needed to redo 9th grade English class, but I can't believe this is just bad sentence structure: the problem is with the sea otters living off the coast of California?!!!

Would that problem be their tendency to inconsiderately die from the diseases carried by cat poo? Or would the problem be that they live off the coast of California? Maybe they should move slightly East where this won't be a problem? Would Reseda do, or maybe Phoenix?

Or, maybe the problem is that we are evidently dumping inadequately treated sewage into the ocean in the first place? CA definitely doesn't have the worst sewage treatment plants in the world, just the most aggressive legislation, so I doubt this is only a problem here.

I love cats, and their need for a suitably delicate pooping surface. In addition to all of the business they are missing in CA, I can't see that simply encouraging people in the other 49 states to flush contaminated litter into their local bodies of water is any kind of responsible business practice. Maybe they should get with the program, change the name, and encourage Everyone to stop flushing cat poop until we finally get sewer systems upgraded?

You want a boycott, a letter writing campaign, or a cat poop mailing campaign, I'm on board. Maybe we should lobby Anderson's home state to enact similar legislation? Heh heh.

I was going along with the righteous indignation as well, until I saw Susan's comment about the name of the product when it hit me: this actually makes the sticker thing easier. All they need is a sticker that says "Don't" for the California shipments.

Clump & DON'T Flush

Easy enough.

"There are customers for whom we produce [LEGALLY COMPLIANT CAT LITTER] which is available in CA."

Here is exactly what the sticker needs to be, per the Law Enforcement Division chief of the CA Fish and Game Commission:

"....In our view, applying a sticker to the outside of a cat litter package will satisfy AB 2485 so long as the content of the statement meets the requirement of the statute. While we encourage manufacturers to modify their packaging as quickly as possible, or modify their distribution process to ensure that packages shipped for sale in California include a compliant sticker, the Department recognizes that 100% compliance may not be possible during an initial sell-through period. However, based on the information presently available the Department does expect all cat litter products to include the required statement no later than April 1, 2007."

Exact wording of sticker is in the code excerpt above.

AND, they've got till April 1.

And this affects "ALL cat litter products," not just flushable ones. So by Anderson's logic, no cat litter is legal in California.

I am just saying. is all.

-Stephanie

If you do read Anderson's "about us" section, you might see a hint of the philosophies that inform the decision "not to redo our bag art for the sake of California". But you didn't hear it from me.

Oh yes I am definitely of the 'never darken my door' kind of person. I'm to the point where I kind of don't want to know too much about a product because I'm running out of things I can buy and places I can shop. But UPS...ohhhhh they really burn my ass. I paid for next day air and got 5 day service. ARRRRGH. I hate Brown and I have a suggestion what they can do for me. The company was completely unresponsive. The only satisfaction I got was chewing out the poor guy who had to be the one to show up.
I also really hate finally finding a product I like then it disappears, the formula changes or whatever else they do to screw it up.
We have to put up with entirely too much crap and it's not like we get the stuff for free.
I sure hope you can find something acceptable. I know my cat lets me know in no uncertain terms what she finds acceptable in litter.

I couldn't wait to read the california cat poop update - I was drawn, I admit it, by yesterday's reference to "my fancypants cat litter". Where else, I ask you?

I'm wondering if all the controversy over the kitty litter is what caused this?

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/27/markets/markets_0405/index.htm?cnn=yes

We're all in deep doo doo!

I always read the comments too, and really enjoy them, but please don't retire, Laurie! We need you! You're the center around which we spin.

I'm going to check out the Walmart brand he mentioned, too (thanks). Since Mass. either doesn't have otters, or doesn't care about them, I can order the clumpy stuff, but I'm all for saving the money when I can!

What if you promised not to flush? And promised to put a biohazard sticker on the garbage? And bowed three times to each of the four cardinal directions and promised to never, never, hurt a sea otter. Then could your cats poop again?
Just sayin'

Well... Laurie.. I can't post anything new that hasn't already been posted... but I admire your love for your cats. I buy cat litter based on MY needs. Can't smell to flowery, can't make ME sneeze when I pour it out and it has to work good. I did buy a Booda Box at PetCo that cuts down on the odor of the cat itself, so that helps.

I think you should send Mr. "We can't help you" a photo of Soba... (shudders)

I didn't know there were awards for readers' comments. Now I'm actually going to have to come out of lurker-dom and comment. Sigh.

I think they should re-do the packaging to just read, "Clump". That way there's no need to redesign the whole thing - just delete a letter and a word. Or, they could cover up the "flush" part with the long-ass sticker that not another Stephanie provided.

I have to say it, don't you just hate snobbery in letter form? You should mail them a bag of poop,just to get your point across. We use Tidy Cats over here, I understand your woes with a sensitive kitty, we have Pukey Cat. She can't tolerate much of anything and barfs all over the house.
I would send the poop in a nicely wrapped box, with the message....Bob sends his love. :^)
hee hee.

cat poop in the mail = wmd

Oh yes, I also do not patronize certain establishments because they are boneheaded and announce my intentions loudly. Go girl!

Your two recent posts sent me running to the internets to learn more. Did you know there's a colony of FERAL CATS living near a bunch of OTTERS? Hmmm. There's also a problem with Runoffs from dairies near the otters. Cats, apparently, are attracted to dairies. Now, if we cat lovers don't want to hurt otters and think not flushing the poop will do so, then let us figure that out Mr. Big Poop Maker Man. Having been through the pain of finding the perfect litter, I'm incensed.

uhoh, meant to say Big Poop Litter Maker Man. See how upset I am?

Laurie, I love your blog and I am with you on the litter thing (despite me being more of a dog person), but I have a small nit (knit? LOL) to pick with you -- it is a common misconception that Kleenex and TP are the same, and are both flushable. I learned just recently that Kleenex was not made to break down the same way as TP does, and is not considered flushable. Since we're talking flushability here. I'm sure this is somehow also the fault of those cute li'l sea otters, like the man said.

i love sea otters....i love bob's smile....i have clogged the toilet with poo from 3 cats, u must have to multi flush to do the job...methinks u need to put down more litter boxes with an alternative litter, alongside the current litter, so they have time to adjust to the change. if i find the online articles i read about cats and peeing and litter, i will give you the link. good luck.

Oh, yes, I write complaint letters. And since I am a writer by profession, they tend to be grammatically correct, non-profane and operatic in their length and anger.

United Airlines is going to get a nasty one from me over the way they handled the latest spate of bad weather. Nothing you can do about bad weather (Why does Chicago even HAVE an airport, if it's going to close all the time?) but get your friggin' web site and phone system in order!

My poor brother-in-law drove me 40 miles through a snowstorm to get me to another airport after my first flight got cancelled. United's web site said the flight was on time, and when we got to the airport, the monitors said it was on time. Get to the check-in and the clerk told us the flight was, in fact, CANCELLED, and I should "come back tomorrow."

Brother-in-law restrained me from strangling the guy on the spot. Call their customer service number, and if you ask for an agent, it clicks over, gets a busy signal and ENDS THE CALL. I finally got through on another number, and got some guy from Bangladesh. People, I live in LA. I know all about accents, but this guy was completely unintelligible.

I finally got home on the THIRD flight they booked for me, but it was 3 hours late and I didn't get home until 2 a.m. and am now working on 4 hours of sleep. We all waited a half an hour by the baggage carousel before someone informed the lot of us that our baggage, was, in fact, at another one. GRRRRRRRRRRR.

And don't even get me started on what happened after I tried to return a duplicate set of calendars to Amazon.com that they sent my by accident. I swear, some days it just does not pay to be an honest person.

Good luck with your litterbox issues, Laurie. I'm still mad at Science Diet for changing their moist canned food formula and at Pounce for completely screwing up their soft pet treats. My cats won't eat them now. At least when I called to complain, they listened...and sent me coupons...for food my cats refuse to touch????

I have to say we have two cats and we were the particular ones with the litter. Sure it started off all gel crystals, until I kept on stepping on it after they did their business. Then one started to eat the gels.

Next we tried the whole wheat/corn cob litter but alas that was when one would poop and eat the litter. The other would just sit and watch.

We finally found the recycled logs that is yesterday's news. They now just pee and poop. When they step out or shovel some out, it is not gritty at all.

Nope, it's not just you. Hey, I refuse to patronise Sephora Cosmetics because they were mean to my husband several years before I even met him. I elevate righteous indignation and boycotting to an artform.

My list of people I'm boycotting is so great that it is becoming difficult 'to trade' anymore (as my grandmothers would say).

Trader Joe's stocks (right here in California) something called "Feline Pine," I think. They claim it's flushable and that you can put the used stuff in your garden as compost. I say that's gross.

For the love of Roy, there are dozens of easier ways to get toxo than from indoor cats. Sigh. (So sez a veterinary technician with over 17 years of experience, including with infectious diseases.)

And I agree with the obvious fact that the letter was poorly written. But, in hindsight, I realize that I know the Andersons (cough) from my years of work in research labs (cough cough). Most of the family is very nice.

Although I wouldn't use bed'o'cobs for cat litter. The stuff is pricey, doesn't control odor as well as it should, and if you don't autoclave it, it may be contaminated with fungus.

And I know you and your cats Laurie. Y'all would get the fungus, I just know it.

(I could find the reference if anyone is interested.)

Here's a thought, maybe instead of giving up California, they should just change the name of the litter. How's 'Clump o' Corn - your litterbox isn't the only one full of shit' sound to you?

And if changing packaging was really soooooo horribly inconvenient and expensive, then why the heck do so many companies change theirs all the freakin time?

That letter falls into the category of "How to lose customers and infuriate people". It is a badly written version of "F*ck you, we can't be bothered". If I was a shareholder in "Clump 'n' Flush" I'd be worried about more than just my product going down the toilet.

How hard would it have been to take the attitude of: "Due to California now banning flushable cat litter, we are currently unable to sell our product there. We are working on new labelling for our product and will contact you as soon as "Clump'n' Flush" is back in California stores."

Feline Pine? I know, I know - you've tried everything! Just figured I'd chime in! And you can get it at TARGET!

I have totally gone Scarlett O'Hara on places with ridiculous policies (cough*ToysRUS*cough) and declared from on high that I and no one else I know would ever give them my business again. So far, so good!

I wonder if some poor "customer relations" person in the great state of "India" is feeling our angry, cat lovin' vibes about that totally obnoxious email response. Given both the grammer and the syntax, I would guess that the writer of the email is not really "Norm" but instead some outsourced peon. Poor peon, getting mucho bad carma from being not nice to Laurie and her pooping kitties.

'Cause you know? The problem with sea otters? Living off the coast? They are so darned cute and funny, crazy anti-cat pooping laws get passed...

As an aside, there's a MythBusters where a sea otter gets a hold of one of their pingpong balls. The cast and crew are all like 'Get it away from the endangered species! Arrgh, we'll all go to prison!'

Not the best customer service letter ever, I agree.

I can kind of see where they are coming from on the "bag art" though. As other people have said, they would probably have to actually change the name in order to meet the requirement. And also, if they kept the same name and added a sticker, you know some consumer would fail to see the sticker, figure "oh, a brand that's ok to flush in CA, maybe it has special toxo-killer in it," flush it, then find out about the sea otters and sue the company for fraud because of the misleading packaging. And, depending on the consumer's lawyer, probably also emotional distress because of the sea otters the consumer had unwittingly killed.

So they could probably get in trouble from both directions.

And my torts professor said there was only one tort law in California that we really needed to know: The plaintiff is not allowed to leave without being given some money.

If I were their lawyer, I'd tell them not to sell it in CA with the word "flush" in the name. But don't trust me, I'm only half a lawyer yet. :) Whether to change the name or not sell in California is a marketing decision, and I'm not any part of a marketer, nor do I want to be, so I have no opinion on that.

Personally, I'm upset about all the little toxos that are dying, or being deprived of their habitat. I'm starting People for the Ethical Treatment of T. Gondii to fight for this poor, misunderstood protozoan.

OK, so there are several hundred people in the CA legislature and a law has to go through bunches of readings and committee hearings and whatall before it finally gets passed, so lots and lots of people had to say "The Legislature further finds and declares that efforts to reduce the flushing of cat litter and cat feces are steps toward better water quality in the sea otters' natural habitat, blah, blah, blah" with a STRAIGHT FACE? I'm not in the habit of pitying elected officials, but I'll make an exception in this case.

Love the Bob!

WEENIES!~!!! ALL OF 'EM!! CAP you have the bestest friends out there....and freakin funny too!! Everybody!! Repeat after me ( and pump fist in the air) BITCH!! SLAP!! NORM!!!bwaaaahhaaaaaaa
seriously peeing my pants and crying over here. Maybe we could form a human chain across the U.S and deliver you some of the "goods" to your door....since we're all coming over any way !!:)
And all you lucky enough to be near a Trader JOe's......bring the 3(or is it 4?)BUCK CHUCK!!!!!

Oh believe me, you're not the only one. I use the phrase "this is ridiculous!" way too many times in a day. I think there's a little drama queen in all of us southern girls.

I'm a new reader, I actually found your blog through elizabethlehnard.com after reading her Chicks with Sticks books (teenage, but cute...I'm 22, it's allowed). I've been knitting for years and I'm loving all the internet resources, my circa 1970's "Readers Digest Complete Guide to Needlework" is great for instruction but not so much for patterns!

This is otter chaos!

There are customers for whom we produce which is available in CA.

I don't understand.

I just don't think one sticker would do it. The litter is called clump and flush. People just aren't smart enough to accept that it cannot be flushed in California due to the laws. There would be blogs about how this litter is called clump and flush and it can't be flushed. And it wouldn't be the company's fault, but California's. It probably says on the packaging, a few times, how it's flushable - hence redesigning the packaging. I enjoy reading your blog, but I'm not with you on this one. Odds are you can find the exact same litter just made under a different name. And people are flushing cat litter? Gross. Good luck with finding a new litter.

Why not repackage the cat litter to call it "Non-flushable, Otter-Friendly" as the tuna companies claim their tuna to be dolphin-friendly? Hah! Nothing like making a virtue out of a necessity. And it sounds like it would do more good to round up (or at least spay) that colony of feral cats and deal with the cow poop. Agricultural runoff is a bigger problem than most people think.

For what it's worth, other flushable litters are still in California stores, with packaging that still says "flushable" -- they just have a small sticker added.

Is anyone else wondering what else is getting through our so-called sewage treatment processes, in addition to T. gondii?

Also....I'm with Susan way way up there on the comments. It must be a Georgia thing as I'm near Atlanta myself. I used to live in California though. I can only imagine the number of people suing over cat litter. And legislators, they don't care. Anything to protect something. Granted, California does make up 12% of the population, but that doesn't mean the lawmakers there care about how many people they are upsetting. Okay, I'm done. GO DAWGS. LOL.

I am with you on the righteous indignation. You do not know the number of times I have exclaimed at some business that I felt had wronged me, "I am never coming here again and I'm telling all of my friends to do the same." And then I toss my hair and flounce on out of the place.

And with a name like Dagny, I bet you flounce beautifully.

Me, I'd trip and fall flat on my face.

>>All the bags advise how to dispose of used litter properly.<< _That_ was the line that got to me, like you Californians wouldn't know how to do it otherwise...

...but I gotta love Bob, even if he did cause me to spew Diet Mountain Dew all over my monitor.

Good luck in your crusade!

If they really are selling the exact same stuff in different packaging, maybe they just saved you beaucoup bucks in shipping fees?

YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY DRIVE TO NEVADA AND BUY A YEAR'S SUPPLY.
ITS THE ONLY WAY.
OR YOU COULD HAVE RELATIVES SHIP SOME TO YOU.
THEY ALREADY KNOW YOU'RE A CAT LADY.
I'm just sayin is all...

The oceans are all connected pretty much so any other state near a ocean dumping this stuff will eventually make it to our precious sea life. What a bunch of nonsense. Don't those creatures swim to Mexico or something for the warm weather? That just makes no darn sense at all. People flush some pretty odd stuff in the toilet why pick on kitty litter. Governator must not like cats. THink he needs one of those bags of poop on fire on his porch a few nights to remind him that people in CA are pet people. People spend more on there pets then people spend on babies.

Thank God Laurie has kitty litter problems in her life or she would be bored to death with nothing to do but knit!

[SOMEONE had to find the silver lining in the cloud... LOL!]

This reminds me of the hassle I had with AJ Wright. They are a company that produces sewing trims. They also own the company that markets Baleen needles.

The knitters out there probably know how wonderful the concave points on those knitting needles are.

So, they made them for a few years, and then, when they'd gotten really popular, stopped.

I wrote and got back a letter from the president of Wrights saying that off white is a difficult color to produce in plastic because they can't recycle other-colored plastic waste in it's manufacture. So they decided not to do it any more.

I begged them to continue making them in black, navy blue, purple, multi-colored, whatever. But they wouldn't.

Luckily, Bryson has brought out an improved copy of the old Baleen needles.

The Baleen needles used to be stiff and get brittle if you left them in your knitting bag in the car during the winter and they got cold, and then they'd break.

The Bryspun needles are made of a really indestructible plastic that's flexible and they have the same concave points. The more flexible plastic is easy on my hands. I love them.

So, once Wrights saw how well the Bryspun needles were doing, they brought back their needles, but only in single points.

The problem for me was that I couldn't boycott because they'd already boycotted themselves!

You mean after lots and lots of years of making and selling (and, you'd think, just an ounce of environmental testing) flushable cat litter, one company is JUST NOW realizing that cat poop is a death sentence for sea otters??? So are all of the coastal states in flush-trouble now? You'd think they'd have checked with a couple of otters before now, to see how they felt about things, you know, when it FIRST came out!

Oh Fawn Hall....and her nifty document shredder. I thought I was the only one who remembered that beeee-yatch.

Norm has obviously never taken any business witing courses or even basic english; AND, he doesn't seem to give a crap about keeping his business. I think we should all write to him!!

As for the sticker on the bag...ahh yes, labelling is the cure all for prodcts that harm, injure or kll. This concept has worked so well for tobacco products!! Now there is a product ripe for banning in all states!

oh..stop me from living. I thought using arm and hammer litter made my kitties tougher. Can you have Bob guest blog all about cat food? I'm willing to do whatever he recommends. thank you

OMG, why WHY is the poop going directly into the ocean??!!

Maybe a new name for the kitty liter?

1: Clump n' Don't Flush

2: Don't Clump n' Flush

3: Don't Flush...Put it Where?

The ban starts in California and before you know it,it will spread across the country. Nina

Oh my Lord - I just saw Sharly's comment, with the contact information for Mr. Norm Pfieffer - I know where Dussel Drive in Maumee, OH is. I've been there. On that road. I believe I'll drive up there! Maybe bring him a little cat poop in a paper sack! To convince him that cat poop can be disposed of in a paper sack, and that a poo-shaped sticker is a fine idea!

what? no case of free kitty litter? not a bag? how about a coupon??

.. and "norm" doesn't exactly sound like a rocket scientist either..

just sayin.

Maybe they could rename the product "Clump 'N' Dump."

I have been so entertained from reading your blog, especially the recent entries about cat poop! We have a favorite kitty litter in our house too, but only because the humans like the smell of it, it has cedar, I don't think the kitties could care less, but it makes the pooper cleaner upper's job more enjoyable, if that's possible!

I read someplace you said you were a Metrolink rider, I am too, but I don't think I ride the same line as you. Too bad! I am a knitter/quilter myself. And oh, isn't the Metrolink Commerce grand? I won't say what products I have seen sold on my train--we'll just say adult in nature!

Beth

Dramatic Outburst. :)

I am driving my kid 20 minutes and 45 minutes to the other rink in town because the ice rink 10 minutes from my house ticked me off. *sigh* But I won't go back there because they called me a liar and I have written proof of what I said. That offends my sensibilities.

No advice on the kitty litter. Though I will ship it to from NC if you promise not to flush and kill the Sea Otters. They are my favorite.

I love the pictures of your kitties.

It's not just you. Back when I was 20 and thought $6.35/hr was a lot for a grocery store cashier, I bounced a check at a grocery store (the one where I worked; I figured they KNEW how much I made and would be nice to me. I was wrong). I paid the bounced check amount back, but I took 31 days instead of 30. So they put me on a "red flag" list. Mind you, I WORKED THERE. They knew where to find me. I couldn't quit because they were cool with flexible hours and I had a "life" (read: I played lots of pool and pinball at night and didn't want to wake up before noon). The "red flag" status was in effect for 5 years.

Whaddaya know? That turned out to be more than enough time for a competitor grocery store to be built across the street. And THEY would take checks from me. So yeah, I never did shop at store A, ever again - even on my breaks. I would even tell other 'red flag' customers that the store across the street would accept their checks, if they hadn't already bounced one there.

I don't know if this would fly these days, what with credit reporting and computers being all instant and sharey.

My parents told me my bunny ran away... years later found out we had her for Easter dinner... I feel your pain!

Believe me....to put a sticker on ONLY the CA bags, is a real PITA from a manufacturing standpoint. PLus, they'd have to change the whole label to make CA happy.

I work in the regulatory field and many of my clients won't even bother with CA because of their wacky rules.

Sorry for the non-flushable labelling.

You know, I've been following up on a similar issue we're having with Arm & Hammer Easy Flush cat litter. As far as we could see, every retailer carrying it has stopped in a 25 mile radius from our house. Writing to Arm & Hammer's parent company yielded an email response similar to yours but without the lame 'change the graphics' excuse. As several other posts have mentioned, it is in response to California freaking about flushed cat litter being a Possible source for the stuff killing otters in the Bay and the inability of any water treatment plant to kill the toxoplasma gondii in all its stages. However, my cat doesn't go outside, has never been outside (poor bubblecat), and only eats science diet kibble. She should be producing poo safer than mine (really, considering what we had at ihop the other day).

Let's start a campaign. We can issue buttons that say "I don't flush".

"The bill would also make legislative findings and
declarations relating to cat feces and sea otter mortality, and would require any cat litter offered for sale in the state to contain one of 2 alternative statements regarding the proper disposal of cat feces. Because a violation of this requirement would be a crime under other, existing provisions that generally make violations of the
Fish and Game Code a crime, the bill would create a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime.
(2) Under existing law, a person who deposits in, or permits to pass into, or place where it can pass into, the waters of this state specified substances, including any substance or material deleterious to fish, plant life, or bird life, is subject to specified civil penalties." -from AB2485
Doesn't this sound like it's hinting towards making it a crime to flush litter?

I won't shop at Best Buy because I lost many hours of my time over several days because they royally fouled up my car stereo installation, which I was only getting because mine was stolen, and they didn't even try to appease me when I complained to the manager about the horrible experience. I think I was treated badly because I was a young woman. Everyone was a jackass. Makes me bitter still and it's been 8 years.

Cat poop scares me because of the toxoplasmosis.

I went to a gas station with pennies when I first moved into a neighborhood. They refused to give me gas, even though they were rolled. For 8 years I drove past that gas station and went to another. 8 years until I moved to Florida. :)
Holly

Have you tried "The World's Best Cat Litter"? It's made of Corn Cob and clumps and flushes and has very little smell and my Bella loves it.
Just a suggestion. Hope it helps.

So, I went to PetCo and found Nature's Miracle. It and several other brands have big "flushable" words on the bags. Either PetCo has a big inventory of old bags, or PetCo has found it's own way to smuggle the stuff in.

... and PetCo doesn't have any warning signs about not flushing. But maybe being a couple hundred miles from the ocean has something to do with that.

... and I bought two bags of it because your cats are so smart kids.

I love how every litter mentioned in his letter says it it is flushable! Maybe they have already made changes to those product packages and don't want to change clump n flush as well. Perhaps because it would be potentially changing it's name?

Hope you find something that works for poor Bob!