We give Dr. Elsey’s Cat Litter a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars.
Dr. Elsey’s Cat Litter is cat litter. At least, that’s what I thought when I opened the package. To my knowledge, cat litter is, well, cat litter. You buy it at the store for the lowest possible price, let your cats do their thing in it, and get rid of it and their thing while trying not to think about the litter or your cats while you do it!
Getting an opportunity to use a well-formulated kitty litter changed that for me. The granule size, lack of dust, and the fact it packs so tightly around, well, the “thing”, makes an always-unpleasant chore that much easier. I’ll go into detail in the complete review.
Ultra Litter from Dr. Elsey’s Cat Litter
Dr. Elsey’s sent me their Ultra Cat Litter for review. It is described as “dust free”, “low tracking”, “hard clumping”, “easy scooping”, as having “superior odor control”, and “unscented.”
I’ll give you my thoughts on these point-by-point during the review, but the TL;DR is straightforward: It does what they claim it does. It has tiny granules that stick to cat doodie like glue. Because there’s so little surface area on said doodie touching the air, it releases very little smell. You can “handle” (hopefully with gloves or a tool!) the business with much less insult to your gag reflex as you send it to its final destination!
I was unable to detect any tracked poopy particulate on my floor. I was barely able to detect particulates at all, and what little there was fell prey to my inexpensive battery-powered stick vacuum. Keep reading. I’ll walk you through my journey of understanding how a primo cat litter makes disposing of feline crap less, well, crappy.
Dr. Elsey’s Ultra Cat Litter Reviewed
About Dr. Elsey’s Pet Products
I’m a father of five on a small homestead in the Midwest. I vermicompost (letting worms eat my compost instead of wasting it down the disposal), raise chickens for eggs and pest control, and do a few other things that are kind to me and my family and this wonderful planet we live on.
My cats and my dogs are never purebred purchases. They show up because nobody else wants them or can care for them, and they are family from that day on.
I like to think that I’m a decent human, and that most of you reading will immediately feel the same sort of decency inside yourselves – most people love and would show mercy to small children and helpless animals in need, given the resources.
Imagine my delight when I found Dr. Elsey isn’t a brand name first. It’s a real person and his wife – and they live the same sort of decent, merciful lives we all strive to live.
Dr. Elsey made a primo kitty litter not to outshine all other kitty litters, but because “inappropriate elimination is the number one behavioral reason cats are abused and surrendered to shelters. Dr. Elsey’s goal is to help keep cats in their homes and using the litter box.”
I don’t know of anyone doing a better job making cat poop an emotionally gut-wrenching noble cause. In fact, I didn’t even know it was a noble cause, but I’m glad Dr. Elsey did, because I can readily see how this product can provide a solution to such an unfortunate problem!
Which Types of Cats is Dr. Elsey’s Ultra Cat Litter Best Suited For?
According to their website, Ultra litter is best suited for multi-cat families and cat owners with sifting or mechanical (automatic) litter boxes.
The site has a quiz that helps guide you through choosing a litter for your kitty. It actually advised me to use a different litter for my cat, Deja Thoris, but I found this litter to work amazingly well. I may wind up buying the litter the quiz recommended to see if it works even better!
I would say compared to any store bought litter I’ve tried, Dr. Elsey’s is superior across the board. I would recommend trying any of their litters if your cat is reluctant to use the litter box, if you wind up with moisture at the bottom of yours (ew!), or if you find that instead of hard, scentless clumps, you get something with the consistency of sugar cookie dough that’s been rolled in too much flour – but without any of the goodness of sugar cookie dough!
Litter Characteristics (Good and bad)
An analysis of cat litter? You bet! Let’s go over the points Dr. Elsey’s makes about their own litter and a couple more I care about as a cat owner:
Dust Free
Dr. Elsey’s Ultra Cat Litter lives up to this claim. It’s easy to see when you open the package and sift through the litter box. There’s virtually no dust. All the weight of litter in the bag is actually usable litter, not worthless dust!
Low Tracking
True. The litter that binds to urine or poop is, well, bound. I did not see any stinky, disease-bearing particulates tracked anywhere around the litter box or anywhere else. There were very, very few granules that left the litter box at all, and nothing I couldn’t clean up with less than a minute’s work with a stick vacuum.
Hard Clumping
True. Cheap store-bought kitty litters are made of larger, less uniform granules that do not allow for tight binding to the surface of a cat turd. These are more like beach sand – but a little bigger. They allow for a granule to bind to the surface of the turd everywhere, so you’re left with a hard clump rather than, you know, the much less appealing alternative.
Easy Scooping/Sifting
True. Dr. Elsey’s litter is easy to scoop, easy to sift, easy to work with in general. It flows well out of the bag and the particles are small enough to easily fall between a hand or mechanical sifter’s gaps, leaving the maximum amount of litter behind for continued use while getting rid of the stuff you don’t want!
Superior Odor Control
True, and because the version I received to test is unscented, this is not done by masking the poo scent with another one. It’s done by making sure the poo and pee are completely bound up by the uniform, correctly-sized granules so no scent can easily escape.
Note: You still have to empty the litter box. Sorry about that, but this product isn’t magic – if you let poop or pee build up, they will eventually stink. That just goes with having an indoor cat!
Moisture Control
Amazing! As long as you empty your litter box sensibly (that means DAILY!) and keep it appropriately filled with this litter, you won’t find a tantalizing swamp of stank at the bottom of your litter box when you go to give it a thorough cleaning.
Unscented
True. I can’t smell this stuff at all, and my cat certainly didn’t find it unpleasant.
Price
So here’s where I initially thought I’d knock Dr. Elsey’s products. Surely a smaller bag, lovingly-crafted recipe litter is going to be way more expensive than the stuff I can get at the local supermarket, right?
Wrong! The going rate at the place known for selling the cheapest (if not high-quality) stuff is about 50 cents per pound of litter. This is great stuff, and it’s the same price as the lower quality stuff you find at the supposedly low price leading supermarket here in the States!
Dr. Elsey’s Ultra Cat Litter Review
The litter is fantastic. I poured it easily into my litter box and my cat had no problems using it. We’ve had issues with big brand stuff from the local grocery or supermarket in the past being rejected initially by cats, but not Dr. Elsey’s!
Our Experience With Dr. Elsey’s Ultra Kitty Litter
I received a nondescript cardboard box from Dr. Elsey’s. When I open packages, I usually use a package-opening knife (original, right?). It has a very short blade to cut tape and not contents in a box. Unfortunately, the litter is so tightly packed in the box that I cut the bag as well as the box. I noticed it right away and didn’t spill much litter, but it was slightly annoying.
What wasn’t annoying was the litter itself. It’s made up of small, uniform granules – this is exactly what you want to see in kitty litter. It gives you a thorough coating of granules to bind poop and urine, leaving a hard, manageable, removable clump instead of a soggy mess of vomit-inducing whatsit.
My cat, Deja Thoris, did not reject the litter. I wouldn’t say she was excited about it, but do you really expect a cat to be excited about litter? I did take photos of her around the litter box, and even moved it into the light so you can see it (and her) well. I did not take photos of, well, things nobody wants to see. Trust me, it works!
One thing I’d like you to look for in the photos is evidence of granules tracked around the box. You won’t find any. I didn’t vacuum or remove any. They’re just not there! This stuff sticks to waste, not to cat paws!
My bottom line: This is a top-notch kitty litter that costs about the same as the stuff you’re buying at the supermarket or dollar store. Why would you pay for low-grade litter that doesn’t work well when you can buy top-notch litter for the same price? Try Dr. Elsey’s. Get it shipped to your house. Enjoy not having to put that giant plastic bucket in your cart and wrestling it into your car!
Conclusion
Dr. Elsey’s claims their Ultra Cat Litter is dust free, low tracking, hard clumping, easy scooping, has superior odor control, and is unscented. Since Dr. Elsey developed the litter specifically to ensure that people don’t continue to put their cats up for adoption due to inappropriate elimination and not just to sell more litter in a big store, it does all these things really well.
I’ll add some things I find important as a cat owner: Dr. Elsey’s Ultra Cat Litter prevents moisture build up in your litter box, it’s easy to sift, and it is virtually the same price as the lower grade litter I was getting from the local big box retailer. Instead of wasting cart space on a giant plastic bucket of disappointment, I can get this shipped directly to my front door in two days. It’s a good deal, and I think you will be as pleased with it as I am!
