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We have the litter box inside a bathtub that does not get used, and we pull the curtain closed so that it is not visually tempting for the DC.
The food is within easy grasp of the DC, but I think they have each only played with it one time ever, so they just learned not to mess with it.
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We have a pet gate with a small door for the cats to walk through, similar to one posted by a pp. However, we found that we kept the little door latched b/c we were afraid of little fingers getting caught in it. However, we were able to pressure mount the gate to the wall so that there is just enough room between the wall and the 1st slat for the cats to slide through, but not for a child.
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Food: We never moved the food and water. We just constantly corrected DD and told her that was for the kitty cats and she eventually left it alone.
Litter: This may seem extreme, but it has worked so well for us that I can't imagine it any other way now.
We took one of the small storage spaces under the eaves of the upstairs, the kind that has a wooden panel that you pop in and out to access....and we lined it with vinyl flooring and cut a little cat sized hole in the wooden panel. They have their own space now, DD cant get in there and it is easy enough to pop the panel out, reach in, drag the boxes forward, scoop and clean, fill and shove them back in. THEY LOVE IT. And we love that the litter boxes aren't in our living space.
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We have a storage room off the finished basement. We put a cat door in the wall in an unobtrusive area. The cat's litter and food are both in the storage room, suitably separated. DD would not be allowed in the room anyway donut works well.
We were going to put the at door in the door, but I got good advice that it was cheaper and easier to fix the wall if we ever needed to not have a cat door.