Many owners of both dogs and cats suffer from a dirty little problem: a dog that is obsessed with digging in and eating the contents of the cat's litter box. This habit is undoubtedly irritating for any pet's owner and potentially dangerous for the dog as well. Cat feces is riddled with disease-producing microbes, including the parasites that cause the fatal illness toxoplasmosis. There are several ways to keep a curious dog out of a cat box and its contents.
Things You'll Need
- Covered cat box
- Baby gates
- High shelf
- Self cleaning litter box
- Odor absorbing cat litter
Instructions
Replace a traditional open cat box with a covered box. Keep in mind, though, that larger breeds will not have the ability to enter the box as easily.
Install a baby gate in the doorway that holds the litter box. An ideal spot for the litter box in this scenario is the bathroom. The cat will have the ability to jump the gate and have access to the box at all times. The gate may need to be secured slightly off the floor in the door way if the dog can still jump over it. If you don't use your tub much, the tub might be a natural place for a litter box to negate the need for a baby gate if the dog is too small to go over the tub wall.
Clean the cat box daily. The smell of the protein in the fecal matter can be what the dog finds attractive.
Place the litter box on a higher shelf. Make sure that the shelf if high enough that the dog cannot reach it and the cat can still jump to it.
Switch to a self-cleaning litter box. These litter boxes use an arm that pushes the fecal matter into a separate compartment that can be emptied into a trash can. Once again, if the dog cannot smell or access the fecal matter, it will be less interested in the litter.
Switch to cat litter that contains odor-absorbing crystals or that clumps when it comes in contact with urine and fecal matter.