I have to confess, I probably scatter more litter all over the floor when I’m scooping the litter box than my cats do when they’re digging around in it. I use a clumping litter, and I carefully spoon the clumps into a little colander and take it all away—always leaving a bit of a mess behind.

I didn’t really notice how much a typical litter scoop adds to the mess until I started using the Litter-Lifter. I mean, a litter scoop is not a piece of complicated machinery. How much engineering can you do to improve it? More than I realized, it turns out.

The typical litter scoop is too small to lift out a whole clump, so it part of it breaks off and falls back into the box in little pieces—not good for the cats. Plus, it has wide, flat tines, which hold the litter on the scoop.

The Litter-Lifter is wide, long and deep, which means you can lift out the largest clumps in one piece. And the tines are peaked on top—they form triangular ridges—so the litter slides right off them and back down into the box. The result of all this scoop engineering is that more of the litter stays in the box when I scoop and less of it ends up on the floor all around the box.

The Litter-Lifter is also strong and sturdy, and the leading edge is sharpened just a bit so you can get those clumps up from the bottom of the box. It comes in several colors (including hot pink and discrete black), and the Beamer and Travel models have a cute cat designs on the tines.

It comes in three sizes. Like Goldilocks, prefer the middle one, Litter-Lifter Beamer. The small one, Litter-Lifter Travel, has a short handle that places my hands closer to the litter than I would like. The big, Litter-Lifter® Original, has tines that are so long that it’s a bit tough to maneuver around the box (plus it is missing the cute cat face.) The medium one, though, is just right. (Editor’s note: I like the Original.)

Suggested retail for the Litter-Lifter Original $6.99, Beamer is $5.75 and Travel is $3.25.

Go to your favorite shelter’s shopping page to before purchasing it from Petco.com or Amazon.com.