It’s a beautiful thing to belong to home with the love of pets in them. Both dogs and cats provide companionship and comfort that only pets can provide. It’s even nicer when the two species can live together in peace.
Having a dog and cat in your house presents some obstacles like keeping their food seperate, sharing space on couch or who gets cuddles first, among other issues.
Here are some tips to stop your dog from digging through the litter box.
Keep Clean
Keeping your cat’s litter box as clean as possible is a great way to avoid your dog trying to go back and dig for what he might mistake for a treat. If you have both a cat and dog roaming freely through your home is a necessary step. Just like taking your dog out frequently to use the bathroom, you’ll have to monitor and stay on top of your cat’s frequency and bathroom use and scoop it out more frequently to avoid mistaken consumption by your dog.
Training
Positive reinforcement and training tactics are both a great way to teach a dog behaviors and right from wrong. Many, especially when learning early in life, will catch on and maybe stay away from the litter box altogether. Others may need constant reminders, treats and other positive reinforcement to remind them of the good job they did every time they ignore the impulse to dig into the litter box.
Set Up Boundaries
Not only is there is issue for parasite passing, bad breathe and other stomach turning thoughts about your dog digging through your litter box, there is also the fact that cats don’t like the stepping into their personal space either. Setting up a fence the dog can’t get access to is one way to stop them. For larger breeds this could be difficult and it might not look great with the rest of your home’s decor.
There are also invisible fencing options to create boundaries for pets around the house. With a wireless signal and collar, the dog can be kept from certain areas of thouse, perhaps where the cat is allowed to go, and where their kitty litter box is.
DogWatch of Western Mass offers safe dog fence and pet containment systems as well as training to help your pets have freedom, while still staying within boundaries. Installation is also available.