Having a litter box smell permeate your home is bad enough, but a cat that's experiencing flatulence can be nauseating to deal with. If your cat has chronically bad gas, check out these tips on how to combat it.

Change Diet — Gradually

Some cats have bad reactions to certain types of cat foods, especially inexpensive ones. Inexpensive cat food often uses filler and lower-quality meat samples that can upset a cat's stomach and lead to gas.

If you haven't tried changing their diet yet, it's a good idea to look for a gentle or sensitive stomach formula to see if that makes a difference. However, you must make the change gradually. Suddenly changing varieties of cat food can trigger vomiting and diarrhea in cats, so slowly introduce the new food by mixing it into the old variety of food. Then cut down on the amount of the old food until there's nothing left but the newer one.

Eliminate Treats

Another potential problem is cat treats. While tasty for kitties, these treats are often packed full of fat, which can upset a cat's stomach in the same way it upsets some humans'. The best thing you can do here is to cut the treats entirely and see if it makes a difference. Go for a few days without giving your cat treats so that any they've had recently can finish passing through the digestive system. If you see an improvement, great! That likely means that the treats were to blame. You can try a different variety of treat or just stop giving treats to your cat entirely.

Anal Glands

Pet parents don't often think about it, but cats have anal glands the same way that dogs do. Sometimes, the smell coming off of impacted anal glands can be mistaken for flatulence. So if these other solutions don't help, it's possible that your cat needs to have its anal glands expressed, or in other words, drained.

This is something that can be done at home, but only once you've received training in it from your veterinarian. Bring your kitty in for a quick physical to find out what's behind their gas — or anal gland problem — and your vet can teach you while you're there.

Most cats don't have strongly-smelling flatulence, as strong smells can sometimes attract predators from afar. However, when something goes wrong with a cat's health or diet, it can happen. Remember that if your cat's odor doesn't improve that you need to visit an animal hospital to ensure that something else isn't to blame.