Monday, August 31, 2009

Dog-Proofing the Litter Box

I was googling around for info on keeping dogs out of the kitty litter a little while ago and ended up at a site that sells covered cat boxes that dogs can't get into. They're sort of expensive, and a little more complicated that what we'd need since Prancis is big enough that he could be foiled by something pretty simple. Here's what I came up with:

Computer model of litter box cover

It's not to scale, but there's the general idea...a little doorway for the cats and an interior wall to keep Prancis away from the goodies. (The litter box on the inside is a model I found on the web.)

I got the wood cut to size at the wood store and put it together with drywall screws because they are the best.

One side and top
Two sides and top
Three sides and top
Four sides and top

They wouldn't do curved cuts, so I had to get a jigsaw (racist).

Box with internal wall visible
Doorway cut

And here it is set up:

Covered litter box

The Colonel (and hence Lucy) can get in:

The Colonel stepping into the box

But Prancis cannot:

Prancis looks at the opening

I still need to sand and paint it. The inside should be glossy white for ease of cleaning. Not sure what we'll do with the outside.

2 comments:

tps12 said...

One other note is that we bought 3/4" cabinet-grade plywood, which is HEAVY...I can understand why that site I found makes their boxes out of plastic.

So far I have just been tipping the cover on its side to scoop the litter, as it's not really possible to lift the whole thing right off the top; putting a hinged door on the side might be a more elegant solution.

Peter Hamtramck said...

nice work!