Automatic Litterbox Central

HI- we just recently got the litter robot and like it except that we have been noticing that when we go to clean the waste drawer that there is a puddle of urine at the bottom of the drawer even though we bought large bags that cover the whole drawer to capture waste.
Has anyone noticed this happening with thier robot?
Does anyone know how to fix this?
we do not know how this is happening since the urine should be clumping in the cat litter, then dropping into the waste drawer. Even if the urine is leaking down into the drawer, it seems like it would go into the litter bag, and not at the bottom of the drawer. It is confusing.

thanks for any feedback!

The only thing I can think of is that the cat may be urinating on the step of the LR, i.e., getting in the box, tail sticking out of the box, and urinating on the step... Any evidence of this?

Hi, thanks for idea, we will check on this.

Hmmmm... Well, now puddles are showing up in the bottom of the LR drawer at my house since I gave the advice above. Imagine the irony of this! It's catching?? I have ordered the extended lip and fence... The kittens are growing up and one of them isn't turning around and not quite fitting in the way he used to... Let's test that lip and fence and see how they work!

we experienced this problem, and it was, in fact, a matter of the cats peeing on the step rather than into the box itself. in our case, all of our cats had been using the box just fine, but then we bought a house and moved. cats can be creatures of habit, and disrupting their routine can affect their litter box habits. that seems to be what happened with our kitties...for some reason they decided to start peeing on the step after the move. we bought the lip extender and that solved the problem for us.

for some reason they decided to start peeing on the step after the move. we bought the lip extender and that solved the problem for us.

Glad to hear the lip extender did the trick and thanks for your input. I just got the extender and fence and added the extender to the LR a couple days ago. I decided not to use the fence because it decreased the doorway to about half its size. Before the products arrived, however, the temperatures dropped in Oregon causing some record breaking freezes (and two extended power outages for me). Two of my three cats like to use the great outdoors as their litter box during the day but the cold and frozen ground dampened their desire to travel outdoors. I also noted that the young male Bengal might be harassing the females around the litter box. So,due to weather and some evidence of harassment, out came a second litter box until the accessories arrived. This second box narrowed down identifying the cat who was missing the litter box when eliminating... likely the younger female (Yang Su Ling) who took up using the new litter box, urinating right next to and a bit over its edge at times, thus, not the male (Ceba) I suspected. He might not be harassing the other cats, either, but more interested that all waste is appropriately buried. He's a bright little guy and a total control freak!

Anyway, until I remove the other litter box, I won't know if the extended lip solves the problem since the cat who needs it, is using the second box. And I used crystals as litter and am too darned cheap to throw them out until they are all used up! Might be a week or so before the lip gets a proper "try out" with the right cat.

Yang Su Ling was "put to sleep", yesterday. She was 9.5 months old. As I look back over the past few weeks, besides the accidents that started to occur out the LR door as reported above, she had few signs of illness. She played but not as vigorously. She may have drank more from her fountain. She slept a little more. Her appetite seemed fine until last Sunday night when she licked at her special food and decided she didn't want it. (Yang Su usually hung around to check-out the remains in the other cats' dishes for "special" food after eating her own!) With that final sign, I took her to the Vet which started a round of medical tests, blood tests, xrays, urine analysis with no definitive results. Medical treatment; hydration and antibiotics. She seemed to rally and, with encouragement (hand feeding) was eating, again, on Thursday but her stomach swelled up which resulted in further medical tests, an ultrasound, and radiograph. (All Viruses including FIP were ruled out by this point.) The radiograph showed that urine was oozing from the kidneys -- again, another unusual result and a fatal one. She couldn't live without kidneys and hers weren't functioning properly.

I don't know if anything different could have been done -- if anything different would have saved her. I keep going over and over the events in my mind. But the first warning sign appears to be the urine that turned up in the drawer of the LR.

I know this thread is old, but I just read it today. I wanted to extend my condolences on the loss of your kitten. I too lost a kitty to acute renal failure several years ago. I appreciate that you took the time to update the thread during your time of grief.

Thank you Mskitty666, for your thoughts. On the day you posted, I was picking up a Bengal kitten in Portland, OR -- Like Yang (a Siamese mix) she has Siamese genes, those blue eyes, and is respectful toward my surviving cat, Zen. My son named her Ariel. The two kitties started playing chase this week with one another and are ready for sleepovers together. And like the cats who came before her, Ariel found the LR on her own, checked it out, and I saw her use it, today.

As soon as I brought Ariel home, I became watchful of harmful substances such as my swimsuit hanging in the shower dripping pool water, plants, etc., etc. -- anything that might have remotely caused Yang's condition. That was my residual reaction.

And Ariel will be my first indoor only cat. I have lost more than Yang over the past 12 months and had to face the changing circumstances of my neighborhood. Although I had nearly 20 predator free years in the woods that allowed my cats to enjoy the out-of-doors risk free, those days are gone. Zen has survived coyotes, a bobcat, and various birds of prey. No one else has. If Zen is to continue to have a friend which she insists on having, the friend has to live inside.

Congratulations! I have six cats all indoor kitties. My oldest just turned 17 this month. I am glad that you will be keeping your cats indoors. It's just not safe out there with poisonous plants, chemicals, mean people and predators. If you want to give your cats outdoor time you could walk them in a stroller or on a harness. I just bought my house last year and we are going to buy inexpensive dog kennels until we can afford to fence in our yard. There are also specially made cat fence or enclosure systems. Good luck with your kitties.

As someone else mentioned, the cause is the cat sticking their rear end outside of the robot and going on the step. It then seeps through into the bin, outside of the bag. The very simple solution that I use for this is to put a small amount of litter directly in the drawer, near the step. When the urine goes through the holes on the step, into the drawer, it hits the litter and clumps up, preventing the bag from getting soaked and sloshing around in the drawer. When I remove the bag, I just dump the clumped litter into the bag as well, and if needed, take the drawer outside and hose it down. I've been doing this for about 3 years now, although my cat is now much better at keeping her rear-end inside the globe than she was at first.