Cat litter catastrophe! Cat upends litter tray.

This is a cat litter catastrophe! The cat upends the litter tray with urine and poop in it. You can see why it happened in the video. He is resting his legs on the edge of the tray which levers it up and over. It must have happened before. How else would the cat's owner have decided to prepare themselves to video it? 

Cat upends litter tray. Screeshot.

So how would you prevent this happening and why did it happen? One possibility is that the tray is a little bit too small which encouraged the cat to go to the edge which in turn encouraged him to put his forepaws on the raised edge of the tray which levered the tray over. A slightly bigger tray might have prevented it. Looking at the tray it is pretty obvious that it is too small. It should be twice this size for this cat.

Further, if the sidewall was a little deeper that would have certainly prevented it. I think that is the biggest factor in this cat litter catastrophe but it is linked to tray size. The size and depth of the litter tray is important in the world of domestic cats. I have a page on litter tray size which you can read by clicking here.

Note: Sometimes videos stop working if they are embedded from other sites as this one is. If that has happened I apologise. I won't know about it.

It is interesting to ask why the cat should place himself right on the edge of the tray like this. In addition to the reason given,  it must be to do with the relative unpleasantness of pooping and peeing inside the tray. It is more pleasant and acceptable for the cat to position himself on the extreme edge. That may be partly due to the size of the tray as mentioned and partly because there was pee or poop in the tray before he got in. Another slight possibility is that he sometimes poops in the human toilet and he is positioning himself as if he is on a human toilet. That's what it looks like.

Comment from one: "I have 7 inside cats and this has never happened. Too small a litter box. Needs to be deeper and if necessary a top on it. Not the cats fault!"