Cat Door Questions

[summermh]

We have 3 kitties, all indoor/outdoor (mostly indoor), and during the day it's like musical cats around here. I grow weary of opening and closing doors for kitties wanting in and out

. Thinking of installing a cat door leading out to our garage, and either leaving the garage door cracked, or installing a second door on the garage.

So... how hard are these doors to self-install, which ones are best, and if you have a cat door, do your kitties use it?

thanks!
Summer

 

[stephanietx]

We have one so the cats can go from the inside to their "outside" (the enclosed sunroom). DH picked one up, brand new in the box, at a garage sale. It was very easy to install. We had to train the cats how to use it and that took awhile, but they now go in/out with no problems. It has a little locking mechanism on it so that we can lock it if we don't want them out.

 

[gloriajh]

check out this website:
http://www.cornerhardware.com/how_to...a_pet_door/019

has pretty decent directions

 

[summermh]

thanks for the help

!

 

[rapunzel47]

We have a Staywell. Ours is a fairly basic one, I think the model 919. My husband installed it without difficulty. We have found that training cats (thus far, 7) to use it is not difficult, and they use it well -- well enough that when occasionally we lock it because we want to keep them in for whatever reason, one or the other will herd a human to the door and express her puzzlement. We're on our second one. The first was installed in about 1992, when the in-and-out escalated after our cat population increased. The flap is plexiglas or something similar and very strong, but even that doesn't last forever when pelted by running cats. It was replaced three or four years ago. I'd recommend it.

 

[snosrap5]

We bought our two cat doors from Lowes. DH built a frame and installed it into the windows leading into the enclosures. Everyone uses it just fine now. Took a few weeks for the Bengals to get the hang of it.

 

[3catsn1dog]

Growing up my mom had a cat door installed in a basement window for our three indoor outdoor cats. It worked great and was awesome till my kitty Pickles decided he wanted to murder the entire chipmunk population on the block and bring them home and eat them...When that happened we locked the cat door and started going back to the supervised exits and entrances so we could see what they were trying to bring home and not let it in the house!! *Try getting a live chipmunk out from under the stove after the cat lets it loose in the house!! Arghhh*