For whatever reason (probably good pricing at our local supermarket), we switched from Arm & Hammer to Scoop Away a few months ago. It seemed fine. A little overpowering but effective.

And then one of our two cats started to lick all the hair off her stomach, then she began to lick and scratch furiously between her claws and around her head. After three very expensive visits to the vet, and courses of steroid treatments and flea medication, we were no further along. The cat was constantly throwing up hair-balls (from all the licking she was doing) and getting very thin. Then our second cat started to scratch madly and my wife and I were getting very concerned. One day, while working from home, I cleaned out the litter tray three times just to keep it clean. It was that day when I noticed that my arms were very itchy and I had breathing issues. I changed the cat litter back to Arm & Hammer.

Now our cats are 100% back to normal, no more emergency visits to the vet, the hair is growing back on cat #1's stomach, and no more hairballs.

This was a scary situation. Vets and on-line discussion boards never touched on the cat litter as a potential problem but with our experience, I am convinced that Scoop Away was the root cause.

I sincerely hope that this post helps other cat-owners out there who may be experiencing similar issues and have no idea what to do about them.

I've mostly used natural litters for my cat. I decided to save money and buy this litter on my last trip to the grocery store. Let's start with the positives. This litter does, in fact, clump hard--rock hard, in fact, which makes scooping waste a breeze. It also is effective at masking waste odors, but more on that in a bit.

That said, this product suffers from the common clay litter problem of DUST. The first thing you will notice when you pour the litter, however gently, is the cloud of fine dust that rises into the air, coating the room. The next thing you will notice is the overpowering, chemically detergent-like scent of the litter. Get used to that smell, because your cats are going to permanently smell like that if you use this litter, as will the catbox corner of the room, and everything the cats lay on. Every time they dig they kick up miniature dust clouds that coat their fur. If the smell bothers you, just think about the cat that has to dig in and be coated by the stuff. And remember that "rock hard clumping"? That's what goes on in the cat's gut when he licks his dust-covered fur. Maybe it's safe enough, but I prefer my cat to smell like a cat rather than a box of Tide. I'm using this bucket up and then will be filling it with the corn or pine-based stuff. Did I mention it comes with in a big plastic bucket with a metal handle? It's a nice bucket, but this is incredibly wasteful. Anyway, there are plenty of clumping natural and biodegradable litters on the market without chemical additives, dust, or overwhelming chemical scents. There is no need for rock-hard clumping, and odor can be managed easily enough by providing an adequate number of boxes and scooping twice daily.

I have 3 cats (one is a diabetic), I've tried every litter brand on the market (in my area) and this one is by far the best. I don't care what other people say, even a well regulated diabetic still pee's quite a bit. Other litters can't keep up and become a nasty muddy mess, not this one, it clumps tight and locks away odor.

I agree with the other reviewers who've noted that the perfume scent of this litter is a bit overpowering. Nevertheless, in my opinion this is the best litter we've tried so far, and I'll tell you why. We have 2 cats, and due to space limitations only 1 litter box. One of our cats refuses to use the litterbox when it gets too stinky, and he ends up using the closet or the bathtub. It's a real problem, and with other litters we couldn't keep the box clean enough to prevent these nasty surprises. We noticed that when we tried Scoop Away Multi-cat, in spite of the fact that we're cleaning at the same rate, he consistently uses the box. Well worth the overpowering perfume scent in my opinion. I will look for the unscented variety that was mentioned by another reviewer, but I wonder whether, minus the strong perfume scent, my cat will stop using the litter box again. If I can find the unscented I'll do the experiment and post an update here later.

Being country dwellers, we accumulate cats for rodent control, several of which have become house cats. The three house cats, one in/outdoor cat, and six young kittens create a need for serious litter odor control. This litter is the ONLY one that doesn't gag me with urine smell and dust when I scoop the litter boxes. I'm also very happy with the tight clumps that don't easily crumble.

I tried several different litters - name brand and store brand, and this one works the best. I don't mind the scent (much better than excremental odors).