littering

"What did they use before there was kitty litter, anyway?" Mark asked me yesterday as we were swapping clean for notsoclean.

I figured sawdust, probably, or sand. But that begs the question of when precisely was bagged commercial litter invented?

Now I know. Edward Lowe of Michigan invented it in 1947. He was a salesman of industrial absorbents, and his neighbor asked him if he had anything better than the wood ash she was using and her cat was tracking everywhere. He suggested an absorbent clay product, which pleased the neighbor so well that Edward thought he'd try bagging it up and seeing how other folks would like it. And the rest is history. In fact, he's the guy who invented Tidy Cat in 1964.

Now, we use Feline Pine and paper pellet litters, but no one would have invented more litter if Edward Lowe hadn't made people aware we needed good box-scratchins'.