High Backed Litter Boxes for Those High Spraying Cats in Your Life

Caitlin Dempsey

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A picture of a grey litter box with red arrows and dimensions in inches shown.

One of my cats is super finicky about how and where she goes to the toilet. If the litter boxes are not clean enough, smell too strongly of the other cats, or aren’t the right size, she will express her displeasure by spraying the wall of our back bathroom.

Vertical Spraying Cat

On top of all her fussiness, she is also what is known as a vertical spraying cat. Also known as high spraying cats, this means instead of splaying her legs and crouching down to pee, she pees stand straight up, aiming her output straight at the sides of the litter box.

Avoid Two-Part Litter Boxes

I have experimented with quite a few litter boxes over the years in an attempt to find ones that allow my vertical peeing cat the space both vertically and horizontally to pee without the urine exiting the box.

I first tried to buy litter boxes that come in two parts, where the open lid extends the height of the box. Unfortunately, what I have found is that when my cat uses the litter box, the urine will leak out the back of the litter box. So, while my walls were protected from the my cat’s upright toilet habits, the outside of the litter box and the floor beneath it weren’t so lucky.

High-backed Litter Boxes

The solution for cats that pee standing up is a high-backed litter box. These litter boxes have high sides made of one piece of plastic. No more urine leaking through where the top and bottom of the litter box meets.

I found it surprising challenging to find a one-piece litter box that is high enough and isn’t excessively expensive. These are the two high-backed litter boxes that have really worked for my cat that I found that were reasonably priced.

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Frisco Leaf High-Sided Cat Litter Box

A picture of a grey litter box with red arrows and dimensions in inches shown.

The first is the Frisco Leaf High-Sided Cat Litter Box. This large litter box has a height of almost 16″ (15.95″ to be exact). The Frisco litter box has a roommy squared-shaped interior and measures 14.5″ across and wide. The litter box is spacious and my large cat has no problem stepping inside and turning around.

The litter box is solid on all sides and one piece so there’s no connecting panels where urine can leak through. The front of the litter box has a wide opening for cats to be able to walk into the opening. My cat has no problem simply walking over the front lip to enter the box. No awkward jumping needed.

Photo of the front of a gray litter box with a low opening.  The litter box is sitting on a light brown patterned tile floor and there is some litter inside the box. A red arrow and 6" was added to the front to show the height of the opening.

There is an indentation at the top of the two sides of the Frisco litter box. The idea is to grab the two openings and pull them together so you can tip the litter box sideways to more easily pour the litter out. The idea, in concept is a great one, but I found it awkward to both squeeze the sides together and tip the litter box.

Cleaning this box is super easy. There are no crevices where urine gets stuck into. I typically wipe down the insides as needed whenever my cat pees high. The box gets a thorough rinsing before I dry it in the Sun for a little disinfecting and deodorizing each time I change out the litter.

My cat accepted this new box pretty quickly and started using it within a couple days of it being introduced. This litter box has definitely become the go-to litter box for my largest cat.

Richell PAW TRAX High Wall Cat Litter Box

The other high-backed litter box that my cat really likes is the Richell PAW TRAX High Wall Cat Litter Box. The litter box comes in two colors: white or black. The litter box isn’t as high as the Frisco Leaf but at 12″ the height is still high enough to contain my cat spraying against the wall standing up.

A white tall and narrow litter box with red arrows and measurements in inches to show the dimensions.  The litter box is on a light wooden floor.

The interior of the Richell is spacious with a depth of 19.1″ and a width of 16.1″. Overall, while the litter box is a fairly generous size, it’s compact enough to fit into a more constrained space than the Frisco. Like the Frisco, the Richell PAW TRAX also has a low entrance that is about 5.75″ high. The entrance, however, doesn’t lead directly into the bottom of the litter box. There is a grated plastic step at the entrance.

The step is there, in theory, to help dislodge litter from your cat’s paws as they exit the litter box. My cat, however, avoids the step and tends to jump in and out of the box. My suspicion is that her avoidance of the step is a sensory issue and she probably doesn’t like the feel of the grating on her paws.

Closeup of a plastic grated step just inside the entrance of an off-white litter box.

For the most part, cleaning this box is pretty easy both by wiping down the interior walls in-between cleanings and doing a full clean and dry out in the Sun. My one complaint is that the added step and the underlying support have crevices where urine and litter get stuck. This mixture turns to gunk inside those crevices so a little extra soaking is needed to thoroughly clean out those crevices.

It took about a month of the litter box sitting there for my cat to accept and to start using it. Again, my hunch is that the step is something she really doesn’t like. Still, she does use it regularly now.

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About the author
Caitlin Dempsey
Caitlin Dempsey holds both a master's in Geography from UCLA and a Master of Library and Information Science. She is the editor of Geographyrealm.com and an avid researcher of geography and feline topics. A lifelong cat owner, Caitlin currently has three rescued cats: an orange tabby, a gray tabby, and a black cat.