Cat Flaps For Glass Doors – Are They Safe for Your Pet and Your Home?
I met Elizabeth Reyfield one year ago. Already in her mid-sixties, Elizabeth is a certified cat-lover. She owns seven cats for seven good luck charms. I was waiting on the lobby for my turn at the veterinary clinic to check the health of my cat Cassie when we met. We were sitting next to each other and her Siamese cat immediately caught my attention. It was indeed a beautiful cat and I couldn’t stop staring at her. Even Cassie began to play around with her. Elizabeth noticed it and told me that her cat’s name is Genghis, after the Siamese cat leader in the Broadway musical Cats.
We started to talk about our cats. We didn’t know that we were living just a few yards from each other. Amazed at this coincidence, she invited me for a little tea party the following week. She would be celebrating Genghis’ fifth birthday. I was delighted of course to be invited. I had never attended a tea party for cats ever in my life.
I went to her house one week after our first encounter. And, boy, her house was big! It was even almost a manor to me. There was a vast garden with cut lawn, a spacious backyard where a big swimming pool lies. Elizabeth cordially escorted me into her house. I noticed that all external doors in her house are made of glass. She’s really a rich lady.
Already widowed, all of Elizabeth’s sons and daughters have migrated to other continents. She lives alone in her house with her maids and her cats.
While we were enjoying our tea, while Cassie and Genghis were playing with the wool near the window and all the other cats were noiselessly sitting on the carpet, Elizabeth told me her problem. She was having trouble teaching her cats to defecate outside the house, simply because she does not have the means to let her cats out whenever they feel nature’s calling. I was about to ask if she has considered installing a cat flap on her backyard door, but remembering that all her doors were made of glass, I became hesitant to ask about it. She brought up the topic anyway. She said she did not know if there’s a cat door that may be installed on a glass door. I was also quite not sure about it. So when I went home, I immediately consulted the Internet for information.
Indeed, I found online lots of information on how to install a cat flap on a glass door. It was also a nice thing to know that one does not need to remove the glass door or to do major construction work for doing this. For installing a cat flap on a glass door, one should measure the height of the cat (or in Elizabeth’s case, her cats). Cat owners must always make sure that the height and the width of the flap should correspond to the size of the cat. Patio pet doors are the usual flaps installed on glass doors. These doors normally come with instructions on installation. Some manufacturers even provide extra service by helping the buyer in putting up the pet flap on the door. Nevertheless, these flaps come in relatively expensive prices.
However, one important question arises: how safe are cat flaps for glass doors? Generally, cat flaps may provide potential danger if they also gives access to other animals and unwanted guests. For this reason, a lock must be used in order to ensure the safety and protection of the cats and the persons living in the house. There are petsafe cat flaps that may also be installed on glass doors, but some of them may require an additional small tunnel if the glass door is too thick for the pet door. Additionally, a lock for sliding doors is now used by many: the Charley Lock. However, some of these locks do not automatically lock and unlock whenever a cat wishes to pass through the flap.
When my research was done, I immediately phoned Elizabeth. I told her that cat flaps for glass doors are available on the market and they are safe, given that proper security is provided.
After one week, she called to inform me that her cats were going well. She installed a cat flap on her patio door. It was indeed a bit expensive but she was glad seeing that her pets are freer and her house much cleaner now that she could train them to drop their stools not in their litter boxes (or on her carpets) but on the backyard grass.
