‘This automatic litter box is KILLING cats!’: Cat owners sound alarm after multiple feline fatalities linked to self-cleaning litter box

Warning: This article contains mentions of animal abuse, please proceed with caution.

Here at We Got This Covered, we care about cats. We care about all animals, for that matter, from dogs to whales, so whenever we hear about some form of animal cruelty, it’s always a top priority to report on it and make people aware.

In this case an individual on X has made a post claiming that an automatic cat litter box being sold on Amazon is killing felines and the worst part is, it’s still available to buy. The post, which was made by user @Maowsers, features images of the litter box along with a screenshot of a one star review claiming that the machine killed the reviewer’s cat.

Maowsers elaborates in the replies that the doors on the box are supposed to automatically close after the cat has used it, there are also supposed to be sensors that prevent the door from closing on the cat. However, it seems the product is faulty as there have been numerous instances of the door closing on a cat and sadly strangling the poor animal before it can escape. Maowsers shared another image showing the door shut on a stuffed cat toy, demonstrating the issue.

The images actually come from a video posted to YouTube by “One Man Five Cats,” which reports in depth on the device, which he claims is flooding the market. The man knows his stuff when it comes to automatic litter boxes, ordering one himself and testing it out on the stuffed toy. It’s quite horrifying to see what the machine does, even if it’s not a real cat; as the mechanism slides up to empty the tray, it doesn’t even slow down when it catches the stuffed cat’s head, continuing to rotate and squash the fake animal between the machinery.

It’s already led to at least two cat deaths

This is incredibly disturbing, and in the video we see at least two cats, Mochi and Charlie, that have been killed by the faulty machine. The machine itself can be bought in bulk from certain online retailers, and companies often put their own branding on it and resell it with the price marked up on retail sites like Amazon.

While the specific brand that killed Mochi and Charlie, known as Amztoy, is no longer selling the product on Amazon, it seems that the exact same litter box can still be purchased from a company with a different name. In fact, due to the nature of the bulk buying model, it’s possible multiple different companies could be selling the same product under different names.

I did a quick search on Amazon myself, and found a product with the exact same pictures the Amztoy one had used, although this one was being sold for $279.99 by a company called “Lppetog.” The one star reviews pretty much all mention the risks this machine poses, yet it’s still possible to purchase the device from Amazon. 

Going to the next page, there’s another one with pretty much the exact same design (minus the cat ears on top) from a company called “CATLK.” These things really are flooding the market, and it seems nothing is being done by Amazon to remove them.