[deege39]

Keep their dog(s) out of the kitty-potty-box?

I'm curious because I'm currently keeping ours in the guest-bathroom bathtub. It seems a safe place being in the tub behind a shower-curtain...

Donatello has never even gone near it, he has no interest in it; Amigo on the otherhand has shown he does. My SO had mentioned a time a couple weeks ago where it "appeared" as if he may have been in the litterbox, but he wasn't sure... :suspicious:

A few nights ago though, we left both the boys loose while we went to the store, something we try to do occasionally to see if Miggy can be trusted. Well apparently the temptation got the best of him...... There was no physical signs of his wrong-doing, no litter or anything drug through the house, but about 15 minutes into us being home he started throwing up kitty-poops. (If any of you have ever worked at a doggy-daycare, you may be familiar with the term "shivomit".) He was immediately crated to help contain the sickness, and I inspected the litterbox; there was still plenty of business in it, so he hadn't gotten much of it, but enough to keep him sick for about an hour. I gave him some Metronidazole with his dinner and kept him in his crate through the night, with only one other incident before we went to bed. The next morning he was completely back to normal, and has been fine since.

Fortunately our cat is very adaptable when it comes to relocating her litterbox; Unlike the boys, she's not scared to go around the bathtub, despite the numerous baths she's had; I have had other cats that have complete nervous breakdowns if you even move their potty-box to the otherside of a room! lol!

So back to my question, how do others out there keep the dogs out of/away from the litterbox? For the time being I have a bathtub in-which the litterbox can stay, but in a few months when we all move into our house which is a 2bed-1bath, I'm limited on places to put it... I'm thinking of adding a "kitty-door" that leads into the laundry room, and possibly designing a new litterbox, in-which Jinkies will have to climb up and inside to use it. [Seeing how Miggy is the same size she is.]

There is some training needed here, but since this is a behavior he's only ever done when we're not home, there's not a lot we can do, I would like to work at one day trusting him enough to be loose while we're gone, but I'm also aware I'll probably have to keep the temptation out of reach...

Any other stories/ideas/suggestions?

 

[PatchworkRobot]

Baby gates.
They're a life saver.

 

[luv2byte]

We used baby gates in the hallway to our laundry room, where the litter box is located. Now we have the Litter Robot, LOVE it.

 

[jfinner1]

I agree, baby gates are awesome. I'm not sure what size your dogs are, you said one was the same size as your cat? We have two, a doxie-pin who's the same size as the cat, and a Great Pyrenees. I also have two rabbits (and a beaded dragon, but he doesn't factor in here). I needed a way to keep the dogs away from the rabbits and the litter box, and keep the cat away from the rabbits during their free-play time. The big dog could knock down a baby gate without trying, so I ended up making a door out of C&C shelf panels. It latches and is sturdy enough to keep the big dog out, and I put a cat sized hole about 1ft off the ground, so my cat can easily jump through, but even though the little dog could fit through the hole, he doesn't trust that he can jump *and* fit through the hole at the same time, lol. And the cat hole itself has a latching door so I can lock the cat out to let the bunnies play, of just keep him out of my hair when I'm cleaning his box. I'm not sure if any of this helps you, but there it is.

As a side note, putting the litter box in the bathtub would *never* work in my house. My cat hates the bathtub, but my dog loves to sleep in it!

 

[sassafras]

The dogs won't go down the open-backed stairs into the basement. THANK GOD. Otherwise I would probably just keep the basement door closed and cut a cat-hole in it.

 

[NozOnyCalAur]

Baby gates.
They're a life saver.

Yes and only $10 at Wal-mart.