Smarty Cat

So several months ago, Anna convinced me to get an automatic litter box for Howie, and for a long time it worked great. Recently though, Howie seems to have outsmarted the thing. The basic idea of the design is that after the cat uses the litter box a rake travels from one end of the box to the other, scraping up all clumps, and when it reaches the far end it lifts up, dumping all the clumps into a waste receptacle. It seems like a good design. Occasionally we'd have problems with pee clumps being launched over the end of the box and onto the floor, but that was relatively rare and easy to handle. Lately though, Howie has confounded the thing, and considering how long it worked without any sort of problems, I cannot help but wonder if he does it on purpose. Howie in all his infinite genius seems to have figured out that if he pees at the very front of the litter box, the rake will make it all the way to the end only to find that it doesn't have the horsepower to force itself through the clumps that are against the front of the box. I think Howie secretly delights in watching the litter box futilely back up and retry until it is forced to throw in the towel and blink red in failure, and I know Howie laughs at me every time I have to bend over that box, scrape the clumps free from the edges and restart that confounded contraption. Howie hates me.