If you have a cat and a dog, your biggest problem scaling that relationship may not be whether the two animals get along with each other. It might not even be that the cat is a runner and hence the dog is a chaser. What has you on the Internet searching the web in desperation for answers is that the dog is persistently dining on cat products, and we’re not talking about the catnip.
Perhaps it is the cat’s food that your dog has a hankering for. It’s easy enough to elevate the cat’s dish too high for the dog to reach. The cat, unless she is elderly or obese, is typically quite agile enough to leap for her meals.
No, we are discussing litter-coated cat poop – those Shake-N-Bake tootsie rolls irresistible to your dolt of a dog.
This is NOT a mineral or other nutrient deficiency that is driving your dog to sift through the cat box for her leavings. More likely it is out of boredom. Or curiosity. Or perhaps a lack of discernible taste buds. That doggy notion that whatever the cat has or does is better than what the dog has or does (and we know all too well that some dogs eat their own poop, too. See The Other P Word)
Discouraging your dog’s predilection for cat feces is a delicate balance, as you don’t want the cat to become averse to her own litter box. So coating the box in Bitter Apple or hiding it or booby trapping the entrance to it will likely motivate your cat to use your bed pillow as a toilet in retribution.
What to do? Since eating poop can be hazardous to your dog’s health (think disease-causing bacteria), below are a few ideas to try. Remember to be aware of your cat’s equilibrium while attempting these options.
1. Rearrange the litter box so that the cat can enter but the dog can’t – raising it or changing the angle of entrance can discourage a foraging canine.
2. Position a gate to block off the litter box, then slightly elevating it so that the cat can get underneath but the dog can’t.
3. Put a box (or 2) over the litter box with a hole in the end so the cat can tunnel through but not the dog.
4. Give your dog something to do to keep him busy so he won’t be interested in ransacking the cat box – a treat ball, stuffed and frozen Kong, a Buster Cube – acceptable food that is available to him and that he has to work to get it.
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