Pampered Dog Blog

If you’ve grown annoyed of having to let your cat out when it wants to, then you should think about getting a cat door. You may have seen most cat doors, or cat flaps – they’re just flaps of light plastic, unless weighed down. Of course, there are flaps of harder but lighter materials – but the point is the same: to accustom your cat to leave and come home when it wants to. Knocked over items, scratched furniture, potty accidents – these are some of the problems cat owners avoid when they have cat doors installed in their homes.

Unless you own many pets of varying size – big dogs and cats – you only need a cat door that’s right for your cat’s size.
Both animals can use the flap, it’s not a problem. They just have to push the flap open.
Now, there are lock settings on flaps, such as towards the inside of your house, or outside it. It’s one thing to put up a smaller point of entry into your house, and a completely other thing to assume animals of roughly the same size won’t try to get in via the same new point of entry. For that, you’re going to need a snappier, most sophisticated cat door.

If you want to avoid having stray cats or dogs or other intruders – including small kids and thieves – you should look into automatic or electronic cat doors. The same principle is used in automatic dog doors, which makes use of a devices in the cat’s collar and in the door, which “interact.” Only your cat and walk in and out of your house – it should wear a special collar that the electronic doors recognises and opens the flap upon sensing. Some pet owners are annoyed to find racoons, feral cats, and neighbour’s intrusive cats inside their homes – and you want none of that. The door opens (slides up in some models with electric motors) or unlocks upon “sensing” an infrared, radio, or magnetic device on your cat’s collar.

Now, just because you’ve put in a door just for your cat means the cat immediately understands your intentions; far from it, you might need to train your cat to use the flap. Take your cat close to the flap and show it how the flap opens, and that it opens to the world outside. If you installed a full-automatic cat door, you must make sure your cat wears the special collar that activates the doors. Your cat has to get used to the event – of the door’s opening – as linked to his vicinity to it. You can use treats to entice the cat to the door if it’s still shy.