Someone mentioned these in a thread recently – I was sceptical so far because of the delay when it shuts. I thought it stayed open for long enough so another cat “in pursuit” of mine could slip through right behind my cat?
Or does that not happen in practice?

If it didn’t have that one flaw, I would be very tempted to get one…

if the second cat is close enough so that the flap doesn’t close it will get through, but how often will this happen? It will happen occasionally but far better than to have a flap with no access control at all

Works for us, although I’m not sure we’ve had any cats brave enough to pursue into the house that closely.
It has eliminated the problem of the local tom scenting everywhere when we had no control on entry. He’s now resigned to scenting the outside of the cat flap.

I suppose it could happen, didn’t for us though. Stopped other cats coming in and feasting on our cats food though!

Works for me too. It does seem to have a smaller flap than ‘normal’ though so if you have a large moggy it may struggle to fit through.
On one occasion the batteries had run out on mine, fat local cat tried to get through (it’s always trying to get in, no idea why), so my cat waited until it got itself stuck then laid into it 😆

We fitted one after another cat kept coming in the house. Not had any problems since.

We’ve had one for years now. Wouldn’t have any other type now. Pricey though.

We have a std “magnet” cat flap. Have heard the chasing cat smash into the closed cat flap during a ‘close’ chase… obviously if he also had a magnet, it would have gotten straight in.

We got one to keep the local tom out.

But one of cats can not get it to work – we’ve shoved him through the flap in programming mode on several occasions but he refuses to come in through it. No idea whether it’s him* or the chip. His sister gets on fine with it.

* He’s not that bright.

The lock after entry delay is normally programmable. We use the PetPorte, keeps the neighbour’s cats out.

Here is a random cat trying (and failing) to get in…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/tjetzb]An unwanted cat at the cat flap[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

But one of cats can not get it to work – we’ve shoved him through the flap in programming mode on several occasions but he refuses to come in through it. No idea whether it’s him* or the chip. His sister gets on fine with it.

His chip may not be in quite the ‘correct’ place, I’m sure that can be an issue.

When our cats were younger they were too short to get in range of the RFID reader, so I built some steps to get their shoulders higher:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/f2n5MJ]Cat steps[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Oh, cool, thanks – I can’t remember which model I looked at, it said the shortest possible delay was 3 seconds; where we lived at the time, I thought it would have been very easy for the cat that chased ours to come in within 3 seconds of our cat, he was literally right on her tail 🙂

We have moved since though, and so far I haven’t observed any chasers – more likely another cat will come in for a look around 😉

Re magnet ones, we did have one of those, but a) our cat hated collars and managed to get rid of it regularly, so no magnet = no access, and b) like z1ppy said, if other cats have magnets, they can still come in…

I’ll look again at the chip activated ones, sounds like in practice they work quite well!

What rondo101 said ^

I can’t remember which model I looked at, it said the shortest possible delay was 3 seconds;

Petporte is 1-25 secs

Manual here: http://www.zoohit.cz/pictures/product/Staywell%20navod.pdf

alp_girl I’ve got a 1 cat Sureflap ( I think ) which is sat at home doing nothing if your interested in it ( we got another kitten so needed one which could tell 1 cat from another ) Its not been used for about 9 months or so will need to check it out.

Ours has been faultless for 2 years, it bleeps when the battery runs low. Worth it for the cat’s smug look when she gets chased by a local cat & it attempts to follow her through & runs into the locked flap

We’ve got a sureflap one and it’s brilliant. Took them about a week to be confident going through it. One of them is still a bit unsure, but I think that’s just cat flaps in general rather than this particular one.

Batteries last ages, but one of our cats’ microchip has migrated to somewhere down a shoulder blade & so he’s always the first one to get locked out when the batteries are going. It still works fine though & the cat with normal microchip placement has no problems whatsoever.

I don’t like the idea of a mains powered one, but only because the nearest plug would be a pain to get to.

We found the best way to program the flap was to put it into ‘learn’ mode before installing it, standing it in the living room & putting a load of munchies near the detector hood part. It took less than 5 mins for both cats to be stored in the memory.

+1 for Sureflap, we’ve had one for several years and its been great. It stopped working a couple of months ago and I went on their website and went through their trouble shooting wizard. A few days later a new part dropped through the letter box (for free). Fitted and good as new, impressed.

Never had any problems with other cats following ours in, however the time delay is long enough to allow an adult magpie to chase her in. Something of a shock when coming down for breakfast to see a large beak looking at you from a kitchen cupboard and magpie poo everywhere. I will never forget the wife’s shouts of “make yourself big” from upstairs.

We have the Sure flap and it works well, when they were younger our cats used to taunt the next door neighbours cat until it chased them home. They would slow to let the chip reader do it’s thing then dive through and watch next door pile in to the now locked flap, very amusing.

We’ve got a magnetic one and the big local toms just force it open. They wreck about one a year. Bloody things. If it was up to me I’d nail it up and the cats would either be in our out (preferably out).

Loving the stories about the strangers who can’t get in (cats that is, haha) 🙂

But aaargh, I really hope “our” magpies here aren’t interested in following cats home… (they don’t seem to be, just in pooing on everything, car, decking, garden toys)

Disco_Stu,
Yes, sounds interesting – how much would you want for it? Is it expensive to post it with the pesky Royal Mail size constraints?

+1 for Sureflap. Had a cat right behind one of mine that did get in once, luckily the dog showed it the way back out. I have seen other cats outside looking in so it works the vast majority of the time. One of our cats didn’t get recognised easily and Sureflap sent me a chip that I scanned and it seemed to fix it. Good customer service from them.

fenn27 – Member
I will never forget the wife’s shouts of “make yourself big” from upstairs

I bet you thought your luck was in 😀

We’ve got a cat flap but no cat, previous owners had one. Having said that we’re off to look at a Ragdoll at the end of the month that needs re-homing.

Anyway, its a chipped cat flap which is currently locked. Which is just as well really, as we were under siege from a huge Persian on the weekend.

Happily relaxing on the sofa Sunday afternoon, we heard an almighty racket and went into the kitchen to discover some bloody Persian crashing his head against the cat flap. I’ve no idea why he even wanted to come in, we don’t have a cat yet so no bowls of food lying around. I was actually slightly fearful that he might make but it held up well!

Ours worked fine until 2 year old son decided to pour a cup of water over it. It then randomly kept locking and unlocking for about 2 days before completely failing.