There has long been suspicion that Sadie has been getting into the cat's
food. It all started back when I had the kitty tree, and we used to feed
the cats on that. Barb discovered that Sadie was using a dining room
chair to get up to the cat-food level. We thwarted her by moving the cat
food up higher.

Unfortunately, Poose has gotten to be an old kitty, and can't really get
up on things like she used to. We moved the cat food to the floor level,
but this caused problems again because the food was now at Sadie level
too, and she's bigger than the cats.

Solution #1: make a kitty cave from a laundry basket. Cut a hole in the
side big enough for the cats but too small for the dog.

Then Sadie figured out how to get under the kitty cave by
levering up the side.

Solution #2: put heavy things on top of the basket so she couldn't lift
it.

That seems to have worked. At least until now.

Barb found that Sadie had learned to push her head through the doorway
that was cut for the kitties, because the plastic is flexible enough to
allow her to get in up to her shoulders, and if she pushes hard enough
she can get their food.

So now I need to figure out solution #3.

I'm leaning toward making a kind of "jail cell" out of either PVC or
conduit, big enough to let the kitties through, but smaller than the
hole in the kitty cave. And not flexible.

However, I'm also very engineer-y build-y, and I may not be thinking of
a simpler solution.

BTW:
3 cats
1 dog
The cats eat at separate times, though they're all fed pretty much at
once. They are all older cats, and need easy ground-level access, or
some kind of handicat ramp.

Suggestions are welcome.