Automatic Litterbox Central

If anyone has both Dogs and Cats, please read. This is a story about my dog Bubba. He is a 90lb Rottweiler/Basset Hound mix. (yeah, I know, but he's so cute)

On September 20 I cleaned out the cats litter box and placed the bag by the door to take out. I went and took a shower before cleaning the rest of the house. I got out of the shower and found that Bubba, who had never shown interest in the litter boxes, had ripped apart the bag and consumed a great deal of the contents. At first I was more angry than anything, but looked it up on the internet.

Clumping cat litter expands to 15 times its size when wet, and takes the consistency of clay cement. I called the emerg. Vet as it was 600pm and he said to bring him in.

We had to wait a bit as an operation was going on then they looked at Bubba. He seemed OK, but they did an X-ray to check and found a huge mass of it in his stomach. They gave him a sedative, them put him out completely and hooked him up to all the monitors and pumped his stomach.

They thought they got quite a bit and no more was coming out so they did a second X-ray to check. Unfortunately they had only got a bit of it out. They did his stomach 2 more times and nothing else would come out. The 3rd X-ray showed that 2/3 was still left and was starting to travel through his intestines. We were now into hour 6 at the vet.

I was given 2 options. I could take him home with antibiotics and laxatives and hopefully he will pass it, and if he developed a blockage then I would have to rush him to vet for emerg surgery. Or they could do the surgery now, but as it is litter it would be a messy surgery and there was only about a 50% chance that he would live. So I brought him home.

I then spent the next 50 hours living in the basement with him. He was very ill after coming out of the anesthesia. He was retching as his throat was very sore due to the tube that was shoved down it for over an hour. Plus he went from no poop, to some soft poop to horrible runs with blood and now he is starting to form up a little, but very small so I am hoping it is not a blockage.

UPDATE: He finally did begin to have regular poops, but it was months before he was back to normal. The vet bill from what did happen was $900.00 and if I went ahead with the surgery it would be about $3000.00.

Please keep your dogs away from the cat litter......I had NO idea it was that bad, but it turns to cement in their tummies. And for some reason, they like it........

Thank you so much for posting this story. I have just adopted a cat and I have an 8 year old dog in the house already. So far he's shown no interest in the cat box, but I will be observing him more closely from now on. I had no idea that litter would do that. I'm starting to use the ScoopFree crystal litter box and I wonder if the crystal litter has the same effect as the clumping litter?

Uh... a lot of dogs enjoy eating cat poop. Don't ask me how I know this, I'd rather not talk about it.

I have also just started using the scoop free with crystal litter, and I believe this type of litter would be even more enticing to a dog, since it has bigger chunks than most other sandy-consistency litter. (Although, the crystals won't be more enticing than say, the natural litters made out of corn and wheat) I have a 5 pound chihuahua, so even a few small pieces ingested could be deadly! I have the litter box in the far corner of our bathroom and the dog has no access to that room whatsoever! Even so, the fresh step crystals does track A LOT because the bigger chunks gets caught in between our cat's toes, unlike his old litter, which was much finer.

Unlike other clumping litters, the crystals don't expand when they absorb wetness....they just absorb as much as they can and then stop absorbing. I would recommend though switching to a crystal litter that is completely biodegradable and a bit finer, so it won't track as much...(also, dogs would find it harder to find the finer particles in the carpet if it is tracked out of the box) I like Dr. Elsey's Senior crystals...it is a litter that was specifically made for senior adult cats in order to prevent urinary tract infections, but it can be used with cats of all ages. They advertise that it is completely biodegradable and even safe for newborn kittens to inhale and ingest. Thus, if the dog got to it, it would be not nearly as harmful as other litters, in my opinion.

Better safer than sorry...keep the dog away from the litter completely!!

Addition:
I went to a vet and asked him about the Dr. Elsey's litter and he said it would be perfectly safe if some were ingested by our cat or our chihuahua...because it is amorphous silica gel and non-toxic, the gel crystals would just dissolve in his system. BUt if too much is eaten, it could cause a blockage.

So there ya go!