Warning, this post is kinda poopy. And by that I mean, it’s about poop, among other things.
When you’re a pet owner, you end up with all sorts of weird problems. For example, I have a dog who will eat literally anything she deems edible. This usually does not turn out well.
We’ve been to the vet (including the emergency vet) for eating gum containing xylitol (toxic), a plate full of almonds (potential bowel obstruction, particularly since she didn’t chew them AT ALL) along with some raisins (toxic), oh and let’s not forget the dreaded chocolate.
Said dog, Roxy, also likes to eat snacks from Dexter’s litter box. It wasn’t a problem in my old house because there was a convenient shelf to put the litter box up where she couldn’t get to it. In the new house, I don’t have an ideal location like that. At first, a baby gate was sufficient, but that’s a pain in the ass.
Several years ago, I invested in a robotic litter box. Kitty goes in, does his business, litter box waits a few minutes for the litter to clump, rotates, and voilà, clean litter box. This worked great until last year, when Roxy realized that in those few minutes, there was a window for her to get some snacks.
Fortunately, this didn’t become a huge problem. Whew. But then the robotic litter box started having issues rotating. So to keep Dexter happy if I was away and couldn’t be home to push the reset button, I put out a regular litter box. He didn’t use it.
Then Roxy started eating Dexter’s food. Despite the bowl being on a dresser. Despite the food being in a very expensive RFID enabled bowl that only opens for Dexter’s microchip. Turns out if you shove it off the dresser on to the floor and dance around on it, it will pop open.
Back to the baby gate. Boo.
The mistake I made next was in putting the regular litter box in my bedroom. The robotic one was having less issues, but the gate is a pain, and when I overnight guests, they sleep in that room.
The litter box has been there since November, and Dexter didn’t seem to care. Until last week. Now he’s using it along with the robot box. However, I’m not used to cleaning it, and he hasn’t used it that much, so I’ve been putting it off.
Oh, did I mention that when we went to the ER vet for the chewing gum incident, the vet asked me afterward if I had a cat? Turns out when they made her barf, the gum came up along with some cat poop. Talk about EMBARASSING!!!
So, dirty litter not good. Dog that eats snacks out of litter boxes, also NOT GOOD.
The only good part of my story is that she barfed up her snack today on the garage floor and not on me, the sofa, or my bed. I won’t make you suffer by sharing a photo.
