Hi! We have two unrelated kitty issues right now, and I thought maybe this group could offer some suggestions. I'll put them both in one post for my own convenience, if that's okay. 
1. About a month ago, we relocated the cat litter from our guest room (we have a baby due in 3 weeks, and that will eventually be the space for toys, sleeping, etc...though still a while down the road). It is now in our small, unfinished basement. We installed a cat door, taught the cats to use it, and they've had no problem locating and using the litter. In fact, I think they love the access to a new space.
However, our basement doesn't have much ventilation. It's damp and cold, and now, the entire space smells like cat urine. My husband is still taking care of the litter, and he changes it once a week. A couple of days ago, we noticed the smell was making its way upstairs (I think through the heating vents). It is so gross. Our laundry is downstairs, and I'm afraid our clean clothes will start to smell like urine. As far as we can tell, they don't appear to be marking anywhere.
Does anyone have any tips/tricks/suggestions to help with the smell? If it makes a difference, we are a two-cat household. We're open to anything.
2. The second issue is that our local pet supplies place stopped carrying the cat food we get. DH did a good job reading every label on the super premium bags of food and picked what I think is a good quality product. Unfortunately, we were nearly out of the old stuff before we had to make the switch, so we couldn't do the gradual shift. (Innova to Premium Edge)
The cats are on diet food because one of them is a very big kitty. The other is a normal weight but does fine on the diet food (they're brothers and share everything). We get high protein, reduced fat food because my understanding is that it helps them feel full.
The problem is, our fat kitty seems to be eating the new stuff just fine, but his brother won't eat. It's been about 5 days since the change. DH and I noticed little kitty wouldn't eat the food, and we've been keeping a close eye on him. He seems famished. He's acting desperate for food, licking our dinner plates, following us around, meowing. It's really pathetic. Worried that he wasn't eating anything, we gave him a half a can of wet food (we never feed wet food) mixed with the new stuff, and he scarfed most of it down, but he still won't eat the dry food on its own.
This morning, I woke up to the fat cat licking a plastic bag, something he only does when the food bowl is empty and he's hungry. I checked, and the food bowl was full.
Do you think the change was just too abrupt and they'll adjust? Could something more be going on there? Any suggestions to ease this transition would be great.
Thanks for sticking around long enough to finish!
1. About a month ago, we relocated the cat litter from our guest room (we have a baby due in 3 weeks, and that will eventually be the space for toys, sleeping, etc...though still a while down the road). It is now in our small, unfinished basement. We installed a cat door, taught the cats to use it, and they've had no problem locating and using the litter. In fact, I think they love the access to a new space.
However, our basement doesn't have much ventilation. It's damp and cold, and now, the entire space smells like cat urine. My husband is still taking care of the litter, and he changes it once a week. A couple of days ago, we noticed the smell was making its way upstairs (I think through the heating vents). It is so gross. Our laundry is downstairs, and I'm afraid our clean clothes will start to smell like urine. As far as we can tell, they don't appear to be marking anywhere.
Does anyone have any tips/tricks/suggestions to help with the smell? If it makes a difference, we are a two-cat household. We're open to anything.
2. The second issue is that our local pet supplies place stopped carrying the cat food we get. DH did a good job reading every label on the super premium bags of food and picked what I think is a good quality product. Unfortunately, we were nearly out of the old stuff before we had to make the switch, so we couldn't do the gradual shift. (Innova to Premium Edge)
The cats are on diet food because one of them is a very big kitty. The other is a normal weight but does fine on the diet food (they're brothers and share everything). We get high protein, reduced fat food because my understanding is that it helps them feel full.
The problem is, our fat kitty seems to be eating the new stuff just fine, but his brother won't eat. It's been about 5 days since the change. DH and I noticed little kitty wouldn't eat the food, and we've been keeping a close eye on him. He seems famished. He's acting desperate for food, licking our dinner plates, following us around, meowing. It's really pathetic. Worried that he wasn't eating anything, we gave him a half a can of wet food (we never feed wet food) mixed with the new stuff, and he scarfed most of it down, but he still won't eat the dry food on its own.
This morning, I woke up to the fat cat licking a plastic bag, something he only does when the food bowl is empty and he's hungry. I checked, and the food bowl was full.
Do you think the change was just too abrupt and they'll adjust? Could something more be going on there? Any suggestions to ease this transition would be great.
Thanks for sticking around long enough to finish!
