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Does your cat track litter everywhere, including your couch or bed or kitchen? Keep litter where it belongs - in the litter box - with these helpful hints.

Crystal-type Litter: Crystal-type litter, such as Tidy Cats Crystals, greatly reduces litter tracking. Due to the larger size of the crystals, it's more difficult for this litter to travel in your pet's paws than with tiny grains of sand. Crystal-type cat litter is your number one defense against tracking.

Mat: Keep a mat at the entrance to covered boxes or place open litter boxes on larger mats (so that the box is surrounded on all sides). They sell mats especially for this purpose at any pet store. This will help retain litter remaining on your cat's paw as it leaves the litter box.

Double Box: Place a small litter box inside a larger one. Fill the small box with litter and leave the large one empty. The large box provides a receptacle in which stray pieces of litter can be caught as your cat leaves the inner box.

Hand Vacuum: Keep a small, portable vacuum in the area of your litter box and tidy up once a day to keep litter from being picked up on the bottoms of shoes or feet and carried away.

Top Entry Cat Box: These cat boxes are completely covered except for a hole in the top where the cat enters and exits. This not only keeps the litter confined while the cat is scratching, it forces the cat to jump or lift itself out of the exit, which helps any remaining litter on the cat's paws to fall back into the litter box.

Drawbacks: The downside to using crystal cat litter is that, while it does an excellent job of suppressing odors from liquid waste, it does not work quite as well with solid waste odor. Your pet also may not like the feel of the crystals on its paws, which could result in the cat not wanting to spend enough time in the box to thoroughly bury waste. It is also recommended that you use a softer litter, such as sand or clay, for cats who have had recent surgery on their paws, like declawing. Also, the top entry cat box may be difficult for pets with health problems to get in and out of. Use your judgement as to which of these methods is the best fit for you and your pet.

Make Gradual Changes: Most cats become extremely stressed out by change, especially changes to their litter boxes. This could temporarily result in diarrhea, vomiting, or the cat doing its business outside of the box. To help alleviate your pet's stress, make changes in litter type gradually by mixing the old type of litter with the new, gradually increasing the ratio of the new litter each time you change out the box. Also, make one change at a time. For example, if you're going to change the type of cat box you're using, change the litter type, and move the box to a new location, do one at a time, then wait a few weeks in between each change.