Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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LITTER MAT~RIAL FOR SMALL ANIMALS
Background of the Invention
One of the most difficult problems encountered in
providing and maintaining litter boxes for cats to use
indoors is the suppressing of the odor from the cat's
waste. Various preparations are sold in small containers
which can be used by adding them from time to time to the
litter material in the box as the litter material is used
by the cat. The practice is not only inconvenient but is
also often messy and unpleasant, and it is difficult to
obtain distribution of the odor suppressant where it will
be most effectively utilized. If the odor suppressant is
carefully mixed with the litter to obtain good distribu-
tion, the separate suppressant can be effective; however,
usually some portions of the litter receive an excessive
amount of the suppressant, thus resulting in a waste of the
relatively expensive preparation, and other portions re-
ceive amounts too small to be effective. Hence, the use of
a separate odor suppressant for addition to the litter ma-
terial in the foregoing manner has not been generally
accepted by cat owners. Another practice which has been
successful in obtaining the desired suppression of the odor
in the litter has been the mi~ing of the suppressant fully
with litter at the time the litter is prepared and packaged
for distribution and sale. After l~sing the litter in the
box, the cat customarily covers the waste by scraping the
litter over the waste, using its paw to move the litter in
the close proximity of the waste. Since the cat usually
uses the litter only close to the center of the box near
the top of the litter, only a small portion of th~ litter
is used by the cat, the litter in the bottom and along the
periphery of the box often remaining rela~ively clean and
free of odor-causing waste. Since effective odor sup-
pressants are generally rather expensive, the mixing of the
suppressant with the litter before packaging unnecessarily
increases the cost of the final material, in that a sub-
stantial amount of the litter material is never in con-
tact with the cat's waste and hence performs no appreci-
able function in suppressing the odor at any time during
the use of the litter material.
Summary of the ~nvention
An object of the invention is to provide a pack-
age of cat box filler material which contains a portion in
one end of the container having an odor suppressant mixed
therewith and a portion in the other end of the container
having little or no odor suppressant therein, and which is
vertically elongated and has a discharge opening in the end
adjacent the material with little or no odor suppressant.
Another object of the invention is to provide a
package of the aforesaid type which is relatively simple to
fill, ship and use, and which assists in spreading the
material when emptied to obtain the most advantageous use
of the portion with the odor suppressant.
A further object of the invention is to provide a
package for and method of creating multiple layers of
material in a sanitary cat box, in which one of the layers
has a relatively large amount of odor suppressant and
another layer has relati~ely little or no odor suppressant,
and in which the first layer is most concentrated at the
place in the box which is used most often by the cat.
The present invention relates to a package of
small animal litter material which has an upper layer in
the packa~e of relatively coarse particulate material
treated with an o~or suppressant, and a lower layer in the
package of a relatively fine particulate material either
not treated with odor suppressant or treated wi~h a lesser
amount of odor suppressant than the upper layer, so that,
when the material has been emptied from the bottom of the
package into the box, the layer having the greatest amount
of the odor suppressant treated material will be on top and
in the place where the cat most often uses the material in
the box.
Brief Description of the Drawings
Figure 1 is a perspective view of a bag of cat
box filler material, showing the bag before it has been
opened for depositing the filler material therein in the
box;
Figure 2 is a vertical cross sectional view of
the bag shown in Figure 1, the section bein~ taken on line
2 - 2 of Figure 1;
Figure 3 is a perspective view of a sanitary cat
box and the bag of Figures 1 and 2, illustrating the manner
in which the material is poured from the bottom of the bag
to obtain satisfactory distribution of the filler ma-terial
in the box;
Figure ~ is a vertical cross sectional view of
the cat box shown in Figure 3/ after the material has been
deposited therein;
Figure 5 is a vertical cross sectional view of
the cat box shown in the preceding figures and an eleva-
tional view of the bay with the filler material being
poured from the bag into the box during -the initial stage
of the filling operation; and
Figure 6 is a vertical cross sectional view of
the cat box shown in the precediny figures and an ele-
vational view of the bag, showing the filler material
flowing from the bag in a later stage of the cat box filler
operation.
Description of the Preferred Embodiment
Referring more specifically to the drawings, and
to Figures 1 and 2 in particular, numeral 10 indicates
generally a package of cat box filler material, sometimes
referred to as cat litter, consisting of a bag 12 and the
cat box filler material indicated generally ~y numeral 14.
Normally the two ends 16 and 18 of the bag are seal~d and
the lower end, ~or reasons which will be more fully ex-
plalned hereinafter, should be relatively easy to open for
the purpose o~ discharging the litter material 14 into a
sanitary cat box such as illustrated in Figure 3 at numeral
20. The package may be a bag or a box, and it may be con-
structed of either paper, plastic r or a combination of
these materials, and it may be flexible or ~tiff. Normally
the bags are of a size which contains 5 or 10 pounds of
litter material and can be easily marketed throuyh a
supermarket or a hardware or pet store.
The litter material has two distinct layers,
namely a lower layer 22 of relatively fine particulate
material and an upper layer 24 of a relatively coarse
particulate material, with a rather distinct dividing line
26 where the two materials are in contact with one another.
The upper layer of relatively coarse particulate material
contains or is treated with an odor suppressant, and the
lower layer 22 is normally without any odor suppressant, or
with only a small amount of odor suppressant. The basic
material of layers 22 and 24 may be the same, such as
ground clay, the difference between the two layers con-
sisting primarily of the distinct differences in the size
of the particles forming the respective layers, and of the
presence of an odor suppressant in the layer of relatively
coarse particulate material and the absence, or only a
small amount, of the suppressant in the relatively fine
particulate ma erial. The kind or type of odor suppressant
may vary depending upon suitability of the material for
10 m;nlml zing the odor from the urine and feces deposited by
the cat or other animal in the sanitary box.
~ hile the two layers may both con-tain an odor
suppressant, the odor suppressant in layer 24 is normally
substantially more potent than the odor suppressant in
layer 22. The type of odor suppressant may be different in
the two layers and three or more layers of different par-
ticle size may be used in the litter material. Since the
layer 24 forms the top layer of the filler material after
it has been added -to the box, and hence acts to prevent the
odor from the animal waste from permeating the air above
the box, the two layers 22 and 24 are normally not physic-
ally separated from one another but merely form a line of
contact indicated by numeral 26 as seen in Figure 2. The
size of the particles of the respective layers 22 and 24 is
not particularly critical so long as layer 24 is of a
coarser texture than layer 22 and is of a size suitable for
use by the cat or other animal. Since cats habitually
cover the deposited feces, -the material should be of such a
size that it can easily be moved by the cat's paw to per-
form the covering operation. Thus a wide range of particlesizes in the two layers is possible so long as the rela-
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tionship in the particulate sizes is maintained, i.e. arelatively coarse particulate material in layer 24 and a
relatively fine layer of particulate material in layer 22,
the size normally for layer 24 being larger than a mesh
size of 8, usually between 8 and 60, and the size normally
for layer 22 being smaller than a mesh size of 8, usually
between 6 and 8. The coarse material may constitute as
much as 85 percent by weiyht of the litter material al-
though it is usually less, such as in a ranye of 40 to 60
1~ percent.
The litter material is normally sold in bags
which can be conveniently opened from the bottom so that
the material can be discharged from the package or con-
tainer into box 20 wherein the two layers of the bag form
two lay~rs as illustrated in Figure 4. The manner in which
the material is removed from the bag and the flow of the
material there~rom controlled as it is discharged, is il-
lustrated in Figures 5 and 6. After the bottom of the bag
has been opened and the material is being discharged, the
bag is prefexably moved in some type of horizontal move-
ment, such as the circular movement illustrated in Figure
3, to spread the material and to assist in forming the two
distinct horizontal layers as illustrated in Figure 4, in
which the relatively fine particulate material is on the
bottom and the relatively coarse material containing the
potent odor suppressant is on the top.
The special advantage in the use of a relatively
fine and relatively coarse material is that the relatively
fine material inherently tends to settle to the bottom of
the package or other container, and the relatively coarse
material tends to rise to the top. If during the trans-
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portation and handling of the packaye the materials of the
two layers become interming]edl the materials can be
returned to their original separate~ condition in the
vertically positioned package, with the relatively fine
material on the bottom and the relatively coarse material
on top, by bouncing or otherwise vibrating the bag in its
upright position to effectively separate the material into
the two layers with the relatively coarse layer in the top
of the package. In order to assist the ultimate user in
~nowing where the relatively fine and coarse materials are
located, the respective layers may be indicated on the
external surface o~ the bag, or a transparent bag or window
in the bag may be provided so that the material can be
inspected before the bottom of the bag is opened to
discharge the material in the box. In order to ensure
separation of the large and small particulate material into
the respective coarse and fine layers~ it may be desirable
to perform the bouncing or vibration operation on the
package in each instance before it is opened. This nor-
~o mally would require a few jars resulting from bouncing thepackage while it is in the proper upright position, since
the particles of the respective litters will normally not
have become intermingled to any significant degree in
shipping and handling.
After the material has been placed in the box as
illustrated in Figure 4, the odor suppressant material in
the relatively coarse particulate material not only tends
to remain on top of the relatively fine particulate
material, but the coarse particulate material can be
maintained as the effective upper layer by jarring or
otherwise vibrating the litter material in the box from
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time to time between uses of the box by the cat or other
animal.
The steps by which the litter material in the
package is discharged into the box consist in opening tne
bottom of the package and permitting the material to flow
from the lower end of the package. This operation permits
the relatively fine particulate material to cover the lower
portion of the box, particularly if the package is moved in
a horizontal ~ashion, such as illustrated in Figure 3.
After the relatively fine particulate material has been
discharged, the relatively coarse material flows from the
bag, co~7ering the layer of relatively fine particulate
: material. The material can then be smoothed by hand or
otherwise to form a horizontal surface for the animal, and,
in the event there has been any mixing of the relatively
fine and relatively coarse particulate materials, the box
can be jarred or otherwise vibrated to effect suitable
separation of the two sizes of particulate material into
the respective layers, with the coarse, potent odor
suppressant material on top. The special advantages of the
present invention are that any inadvertent ming].ing of the
material resulting from unavoidable vibration in trans~
portation and handling can effectively be overcome, and the
relatively expensive odor suppressant material can always
be maintained in the upper layer of the box, regardless of
any undue scratching action performed by the cat or other
animals. The box can be jarred or otherwise vibrated to
separate the relatively fine and relatively coarse par-
ticulate materials from one another into their lower and
upper layers as previously described hereinO
While only one embodiment of the present cat box
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filler material has been described in detail herein/
various changes and modifications may be made without
departing from the scope of the invention.
