The Best Cat Essentials for 2026: Litter, Feeding and Enrichment

Cats reject scratchers that wobble or sit too low for a full-body stretch, which is most of them. The SmartCat Ultimate is the behaviorist default because it fixes both failure modes: 32 inches tall on a base that doesn’t tip, wrapped in the woven sisal cats prefer over carpet.

The post itself is a 6 by 6 inch square rather than a round cylinder, giving a cat four flat scratching faces instead of one curved surface, so wear spreads evenly instead of carving a single groove. That core sits on a 16 by 16 inch two-piece base, assembled with two included screws in a few minutes, no glue or tools beyond a screwdriver. The sisal is a tightly woven fabric stapled around the post rather than rope wound around it, a distinction the review site Meowing Goods notes keeps it from fraying and shedding the way cheaper rope-wrapped posts do within months.

Placement is the other half of the trick: put it beside the couch it’s protecting, and the tall, stable, satisfying option wins. Owners report the same arc, skeptical purchase, then a shredded post and intact furniture a year later.

The Litter Genie applies diaper-pail engineering to the litter box: scoop, drop, pull the handle, and the smell is sealed away: two weeks of scooping per bag change instead of a daily walk to the outdoor trash.

The pail itself stands about 17.5 inches tall on a 9.5 inch square footprint, sized to tuck beside a standard box without eating floor space. Inside, the refill is a continuous multi-layer film with a built-in odor-locking barrier, dispensed and cut to whatever length a scoop needs rather than pre-portioned into fixed bags, so nothing gets wasted on a light day. The pail’s plastic shell carries an antimicrobial treatment that keeps bacterial odor from building up between bag changes, per Litter Genie’s own product page, on top of whatever the bag seals in.

It converts the worst chore in cat ownership into a non-event: Catster’s review calls odor control the pail’s most valuable standout feature, and owners consistently describe it as the purchase they’d replace first. The pail parks beside the box and the workflow takes five seconds.

Litter tracking is physics, it rides out on paws, and the fix is a mat whose deep grooves catch it at the exit. The Gorilla Grip mat is one of the most-reviewed mats in the category for a simple reason: it works and cats will actually walk on it.

It’s built as two stacked honeycomb layers, not one textured sheet: the top layer traps litter grains in its cells while the bottom keeps them from reaching the floor, and it stays soft on paws despite the ridges. It ships in three sizes, a compact 24 by 15, a 30 by 24, and a 35 by 24 for cats that track over a wider radius. The honeycomb material is pliable enough to fold in half and dump trapped litter back into the box, though some buyers note it ships creased and takes a few days lying flat before the curl relaxes.

That second part is the differentiator: the surface is soft enough that cats don’t leap over it (the fate of spiky mats), and the trapped litter pours straight back into the box, no vacuuming, no waste.

Half of vet-visit stress is the carrier fight, and the Sherpa Original Deluxe reduces it with the feature that matters: a top-loading option, lower the cat in, don’t shove them through a door they’re bracing against.

The line runs in three sizes: Small at 15 by 10 by 8.5 inches for cats up to about 8 pounds, Medium at 17 by 11 by 10.5 up to 16 pounds, and Large at 19 by 11.75 by 11.5 up to 22 pounds. Mesh panels handle airflow, and a spring wire frame lets the rear compress down several inches to meet tighter under-seat limits on some aircraft. Sherpa also backs it with a Guaranteed On Board program: if a participating US or Canadian airline denies boarding over the carrier, Sherpa reimburses the ticket and pet fee. Cats.com’s review flags the tradeoff on the other side of heavy use: complaints of zippers wearing and occasionally ripping after repeated trips.

The patented spring frame compresses under airline seats (it’s been the frequent-flyer default for years), mesh panels keep the cat oriented, and the washable faux-lambskin liner makes it a legitimate nap spot at home: which is the whole conversion trick.

The single highest-impact item on this page: cats chronically under-drink, that under-drinking feeds the kidney and urinary disease dominating feline vet visits, and moving water measurably increases intake. The Catit Flower Fountain is the proven way in.

The reservoir holds about 3 liters, roughly 100 fluid ounces, enough to run a couple of days between refills for a single-cat household. Water passes through a Triple Action filter that softens it and strips odors, hair, and debris before reaching the flower spout — Catster’s review of the line notes the same filter also pulls out the magnesium and calcium that can otherwise build up in a cat’s urinary tract — and a pump slider offers three flow settings, from a gentle trickle to a fuller stream. Catit’s own care instructions call for swapping the filter roughly every 30 days or sooner if it looks visibly saturated, though customer reviews on Walmart’s listing say many stretch that closer to two or three months without trouble.

A decade of reviews backs it: three flow modes let picky drinkers choose their style, the filters are cheap, and the pump runs quiet enough for bedrooms. Most owners report visibly more drinking within the first week.