Who invented kitty litter

Along with countless others helping over the course of his life, this timeline is dedicated to Ed's entrepreneurial journey. We hope that it helps to inspire the next generation of inventors and tinkerers to keep going in the face of adversity.

Maybe you will be the next person to invent an industry by seeing an opportunity before all others? As he matured he was keen to spot opportunities around him. Never afraid to hustle, his work ethic and moral compass were setting him on a path for future business success. Every great story has a beginning. From an early age Ed showed a curiosity for life that would later turn entrepreneurial.

Ed Lowe entered the Navy in and continued his entrepreneurial journey by selling labeling stamps to his crewmates while in the service. They used whatever was available as their bathroom, including forests, gardens, and sandboxes. It was filled with dirt, sand, ashes, or newspaper so feline family members could stay indoors.

Unfortunately, the odor associated with the urine and feces was enough to drive many cats back outside — by order of the humans in the household. A happy accident ultimately paved the way for cats as mainstream indoor pets.

In , Michigan businessman Edward Lowe was trying to market granulated clay as a nesting material for chickens. Instead, Lowe handed her a bag of granulated clay and promptly forgot about the exchange. Two weeks later, Mrs.

Draper showed up asking for more clay — and eventually, so did her friends. The clay minerals were capable of absorbing their weight in water, working far better than sand or ashes.

Clay litter became a necessity for cat owners for the ensuing decades. But as all things destined for greatness must evolve, so did the cat litter box. The s brought about clumping litter; this new and improved type of litter heralded the next great invention to define feline bathroom etiquette: the self-cleaning litter box. Lowe's company continued doing research for decades to improve the product. Clumping litter was introduced in the s, the invention of a biochemist who raised Persian cats, and the s saw the invention of litter made of silica gel crystals.

Now there are litters made from a variety of ingredients, including wheat, corn and recycled newspapers. But the basic idea remains the same — sharing a clean, odor-free home with cats. Because Kitty Litter made this possible, Lowe credited his invention with making cats the most popular pet in America. Bartonella is a type bacteria that can be transmitted to cats, dogs and humans from exposure to infected fleas and…. Want to give your pup yummy, low-calorie treats?

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Check out our collection of more than videos about pet training, animal behavior, dog and cat breeds and more. Wonder which dog or cat best fits your lifestyle? Our new tool will narrow down more than breeds for you. If the video doesn't start playing momentarily, please install the latest version of Flash. People provided them with boxes that usually contained paper, ashes, or dirt.

However, none of those substrates did anything to decrease the odor associated with the box, ashes tracked around the house by the cat could be messy, and people began to look for a solution to those problems.

Edward Lowe, whose family had a business selling ice, coal, sand, sawdust, and granulated, kiln-dried clay in Michigan, made the accidental discovery that the clay was as good for absorbing cat urine as it was for the grease spills they originally produced it for. One day in , Lowe's neighbor asked him for some sand for her litter box because she was tired of using ashes.

The sand was frozen, so he gave her a bag of granulated clay to try. She reported that the clay did a great job of keeping odors down, and she and her friends began asking for it routinely for their boxes. Lowe named the product Kitty Litter and eventually sold it to pet stores. He later developed the Tidy Cat brand of litter.