How to keep a cat-sized dog out of the cat litter

In My Humble Opinion
1

My girlfriend and her pompoo (pomeranian & miniature poodle cross), Emma, moved in with me, my 3 cats, and my 60 lb lab mix, Bela, a couple of months ago.

In the past few days, we have been made aware that Emma has discovered the closet where we keep the litter boxes. It took her a couple of months, and I was hoping that she’d not pick up the habit, but she has now shown that she will sneak into the litter whenever she’s in the house without direct supervision.

Bela used to have a litter box habit, but this was quickly solved by using a security chain on the closet door, keeping the door open wide enough for cats to get in and out, but small enough that Bela can’t even get her head in. Emma is too small for this technique to work.

The first thing I’m going to do is take the crystals out of my litter mix, to make sure Emma doesn’t injest any of it. I have been using a mix of crystals and Feline Pine for years.

My options are also somewhat limited in that one of my cats is “special”. Dexter has poor vision and coordination and just is not as graceful and agile as the average cat. I have to have the litter boxes on the floor so they’re easily accessible to him.

Dexter also has a special urinary diet, that the other two cats also eat, so it is not possible for me to switch the cats’ diet so that their waste is less attractive and palatable to dogs.

I really need a way to keep Emma out of the closet altogether. Anyone have any ideas?

One thing I’m thinking might work would be rigging the closet and clipping some sort of device to Emma’s collar that would squeal in a loud and obnoxious fashion if she were trying to enter the litter closet. This would also alert us to her sneaking and provide us the opportunity to adjust her behavior in mid-sneak, which is going to be the most effective deterant anway. The problem is we can’t seem to catch her in the act.

I can just see it now. Shampoo in my hair, soaking wet from the shower, hovering over Emma and her mouthfull of cat shit, using my “No” voice. But I’d rather endure that a few times than have endure a stinky, face-licking dog with a litter habit.

2

Was gonna suggest you remove the closet door, and put a baby gate over it - the cats can jump over that but the pom-poo couldn’t. Then I reread your OP and realized this presumably wouldn’t work with the “special needs” cat.

I wonder if something like a cat-door, one of the ones where the cat has to wear a special electronic collar for it to work, might do the trick: http://www.doors4pets.com/Pet-Doors/electronic-pet-doors.asp - equip the cats with the special collar, but don’t equip the dog.

Hopefully folks more knowledgeable about cat/dog cohabitation will have better advice than mine!

3

The dog is eating the cat poo???

If the dog is preventing the cat from ‘going’ you should get a 2nd box ASAP or the cat will make her own aragaments.

You may be able to make a ‘dog trap’ of sorts. like suggested above, use a baby gate but make a ramp to allow the cat (and dog) to climb up (and jump in). on the other side use a much steaper (near vertical) board wrapped w/ rope. The cat should have no trouble getting back up if not declawed, but woe be to the dog.

I suggest the ‘trap’ method just because how would you like to have to climb a wall to get to the toilet.

4

So far the cats don’t seem to mind or notice that their litter boxes are being raided for snacks. We don’t leave Emma unsupervised very often, so she doesn’t have the opportunity to go exploring the closet very often.

We also don’t have any direct evidence that Emma is actually eating anything, but her muzzle is periodically covered with incriminating sawdust evidence, and her head generally stinks to high heaven more often than not these days. In my experience there is only one reason dogs go snorfing in litter boxes…to munch on cat sh*t.

Dexter is coordinated to jump up onto the table where we keep the cat food. He has to concentrate and do a little butt wiggling wind-up ritual that requires some space, but he manages. I think the first thing we’re going to try is putting the litter boxes up on a similar table inside the closet. We’ll leave the cats a little landing area, and hopefully Dexter will be able to negociate it, and it will be too small to give Emma easy access. It will also hopefully cause any attempts Emma does make to be loud enough to wake us up or get us out of the shower.

The cats-only cat door is a good idea too, but we’re renting so I’d rather not have to switch out the closet door with one that we can cut a hole in.

5

My parents have several dogs (a pair of Labs and a pack of Chihuahuas) and cats, and yes, the dogs do enjoy stealing snacks from the litterbox when they can (“kitty nuggets”). I’m convinced dog food flavors are for the dog’s owners. If they made dog food in flavors dogs liked, you would vomit right there in the store. Which would just be a hassle for the store.

Their solution was to get a covered litter box and turn it so the entrance is facing the wall, leaving only a few inches of space. The cats can easily come and go as they please but the dogs either are too big to fit or too stupid to find the entrance.

6

One more thing, our Chihuahua wears a cat collar with a bell because the dog collars were all too big when we got it for him. A side benefit is that we can always hear where he is. Maybe you would be able to hear when the dog when it’s trying to get into the litter box if it had a bell on it’s collar?

7

A pom-poo?

snerk snerk… BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA!

8

Maybe you could get one of those self-cleaning litter boxes? Emma could still get to the litter but the cat poo would at least be unavailable. Actually, there’d still be a ten minute or so gap between when the cats go and the box cleans itself during which Emma could get to the cat poo but at least she wouldn’t have access to it all the time like she does now.