Play sound if dog gets near litter box

I have a small dog and cat. Sometimes the dog sneaks in to check out the contents of the litter box. He normally learns quickly, but I’ve never caught him in the act which makes it difficult to train him that he’s not allowed by the litter box.

I was thinking I could put a small RFID tag or similar on my dog’s collar, and that it would trigger a slightly annoying noise if he goes near the litter box. I’m struggling to find such a system though; what I have been able to find seems a bit too bulky for my small dog. Any advice welcome, thank you.

It’s possible, but I wouldn’t do it, because if the dog triggers the noise while the cat is near the litter box you could end up with the cat deciding to never go near the litter box again. :thinking:

Instead, what I think most people do is take advantage of the fact that most cats will move vertically and most dogs won’t. So you build some kind of system, it could be as simple as shelves on the wall so the cat can go up, cross, and down again and you just put a small barrier baby gate around the litter box and you have something the cat can access and the dog cannot. Again, assuming that your cat will climb and your dog will not.

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Our family has always had lots of dogs and cats (at one point we had four dogs and nine cats) and we always used a system of this type and it worked well.

You can even just do it with two cat trees next to each other and the baby gate at the ground level between them.

If the dog is wider than the cat, such as a French bulldog, you might also be able to use a device like the Dog Buddy which keeps a door open a crack wide enough for the cat to get through, but not the dog. I have a couple of friends who use this and really like it. But of course it only works if you can create an opening big enough for the cat but too small for the dog.

https://www.chewy.com/door-buddy-door-latch-plus-door/dp/180859

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Thanks for your thorough and thoughtful response. Unfortunately my cat is elderly and can’t climb or jump anymore so the litter box needs to be on the floor. The dog is also quite skinny, so he can squeeze anywhere the cat can get. Maybe I can setup a friend’s Furbo or something to just alert me on my computer while I’m working from home, so I can catch the dog if he goes near and teach him that way.

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Understood. We had one cat who didn’t like to jump and it did throw off a lot of our usual strategies.

How about just getting one of those jumbo litter mats and training the dog separately to stay off the mat with the usual leave it training.

Then after the dog is trained, put the mat under the litter box, and hopefully the dog will stay off of it and the cat, not having had any training, won’t care.

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Oooh, that’s very clever. I didn’t think about training the dog with the mat in a different place and then moving it to the litter box. I’ll try that, thank you!

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