Cat Litter - A Review of Three Major Brands

I like to shop at the local warehouse club store for cat litter because it means a better price and the large size containers mean that I have to shop for it less often. So, what is available there is a big part of which brands I tried. The three brands are Fresh Step, Tidy Cat and Arm & Hammer. I didn't look closely at the price. They seemed to be with in a reasonable range of each other. The most important thing for me was to find a cat litter that performed well.

The reason I went through three different brands is that Fresh Step, the first brand I tried, was causing problems. It was odd how long I had been using it before I realized it was an issue. Maybe the company changed something about the litter, I don't know, but, I started noticing a couple of issues with it. This brand is very dusty. My cat is a Siberian, which means long-haired and thick fur. What I started to notice was that there was kind of a film, a residue, on her fur. I would have to wash my hands every time I pet her because I could feel the film and I would get this perfume cat litter smell all over my hands. The other problem was that my cat had started wheezing a lot. I had a hunch that the wheezing was caused by the dusty cat litter. So, I decided to try another brand.

Next up was Tidy Cat. Huge improvement with the dust issue. This cat littler didn't seem to have any dust at all. After a few weeks the film from the Fresh Step cat litter wore off her fur and I noticed the wheezing had gone away almost completely. The problem with Tidy Cat was that it did a terrible job with odor control. Fresh Step was excellent at odor control. So, the failure of Tidy Cat to take care of it was very noticeable. I was thrilled that my cat was healthier with this brand but the odor issue was unacceptable.

The third and final brand is Arm & Hammer. I had seen an ad for this brand and noticed that the main feature was dual odor control. It was supposed to have ingredients for fighting both urine and feces odor. That sounded good but, I was concerned it would be dusty like the Fresh Step. I noticed that they had this on the shelves at my wholesale club. So, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. There was a little bit more dust than with Tidy Cat but, no where near as much as Fresh Step and it not enough to cause a problem for my cat. The odor control is very good. It does what they say. This cat litter has a light, clean smell to it and it really does seem to neutralize odors.