SureFlap-Sure Petcare Microchip Pet Door (White)

The media could not be loaded. I love it, my cat despises it! (If you do not believe me, see the attached photo.) On the flip, the SureFlap door does make an excellent cat window. (ie. See attached photo.) I think the reason why he doesn't like using the SureFlap door, cats tend to get spoiled easily, such as eating treats and refusing to eat regular food. He enjoys when I open the regular door for him when he's going outside, as this also scares any predators away. He then enjoys when I open the regular door and greet him to come inside after roaming around for awhile.Day 1 after installation of the SureFlap Pet DoorCat lays limp nearby the SureFlap Pet Door, in obvious protest of the dehumanizing SureFlap Pet Door. (He performs similar when being dawned with his cat leash harness.)Day 2While he's crying to be let outside using the regular door, I was retrieving and readying to turn on the vacuum sweeper when he gladly hopped out the SureFlap Pet Door all by himself!Day 3He's still hesitant to use the door when coming in, but not so much going. I'm now putting dry food stacked with snacks and treats after he's been out for awhile near the edge of the SureFlap Pet Door, in hopes to entice him to enter the house with a little more vigor. This is working, and he's somewhat used to the locking noise now, but still finds the door dehumanizing and would rather sit outside for four to six hours until I let him inside using the regular house doors.Day 5-7He's now getting more used to going out the SureFlap Pet Door, but entering the door is still dehumanizing for him. No problems with the unlocking mechanism of the door, just psychologically dehumanizing! He knows to use his paw to push the bottom of the door, but just doesn't readily enter the SureFlap Pet Door.Two Week IntervalAbsolutely no problems with the cat using the door to exit the house now. Only problem, I'll tend to still see him waiting on the front porch to be let inside at night, instead of him using his cat door on the side of the house. During the day, he does use his door. He's learned well for the past weeks that he can use his front paw for opening the cat door, or at least play with the magnetic door sealing door. I think the action of the magnet tends to scare him a little, as he does not understand how magnets work. He's also still on the ten second delay. Might also be getting skittish while exiting the door this morning, likely smelling the possible presence of a raccoon within the exterior of the entry way. In another week, I'll try disabling/reducing the 10 second delay, and hoping this doesn't also teach the raccoon how to use the door. No more leaving any food on the inside of the door, nor do I think the cat needs anymore encouragement at this point.Three Week IntervalMy cat is becoming more used to the locking mechanism and the mystical magnetic door closing action. I think placing some catnip at the bottom of the door has made him extremely more comfortable with using the door more often. Still using the ten second mode, although he his making the transition much faster from outside to inside the house, and vice versa.PROS1) Well made. I haven't seen such a well made product for such a long time!2) Pretty easy to install, within a 2x6 exterior wall. (I used two white 2-2.75 inch SureFlap Microchip Pet Door Tunnel Extenders. The brown extenders tend to interfere with the unit's operation.)3) Electronics and electrical user interface works well, and intuitive.4) Uses some good sized batteries, for providing the amps for longtime operation.CONS1) No significant cons so far, besides the unit doesn't include a vinyl siding curved U channel.2) I was a little hesitant to purchase this product due to all the negative reviews, but latter realized those writing negative reviews were likely writing for different earlier product models.3) When the cat goes through the door and the door closes, the door tends to catch the end of his tail. Although the door is really light, I still wonder if it is bugging the cat. I doubt it though.4) I'm wondering if such a door used within colder climates should have some method of preventing heat loss, such as an arctic entry way. (I have not had the time to engineer an arctic entry for this little door for prevent heat loss, as this seems less of a concern for the tropical climates of northeastern Ohio.) I measured the temperature loss using an HVAC laser thermometer during a cold night during Winter, likely around just below or at zero Fahrenheit as we had a warm Winter; and noticed likely due to the small opening, heat loss appeared minimal and the only heat loss registering on the thermometer was primarily extending approximately 1-2 feet around or in front of the pet door by a few degrees loss in comparison to the average interior temperature. Since the pet door is in a small rear room containing the litter boxes, and the room's heat plan is engineered a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house, doesn't seem much of a concern.5) WARNING: Keep the buttons covered using the button cover plate, else your cat may accidentally unlock the door by repetitively pawing at the pet door, inadvertently hitting the unlock button! Due to my cat's injuries sustained while fighting with other stray cat(s), I had to lock him inside for a month. One night, while he likely had to pee really badly and not wanting to use his litter box, I found he was partially through the supposedly locked pet door after frantically pawing away at the pet door, but was luckily partially temporarily caught in the pet door by his pet large cone, or "Cone of Shame." Nowadays at most times, I still have the buttons uncovered for easily temporarily locking him inside while cutting the grass, or other times. I just try to remember to use the button cover plate, for when I'm trying to keep him inside longer than a few hours.TIPS1) I used an average rise or height from floor, four to five inches. The hinged part of the door adds about an inch to the rise, so the bottom of my door has about a four inch rise, while the hinges rise to about five inches.2) Use the included collar RFID key for testing the door. Do not use the key on a outdoor cats, as outdoor cats loose their collars on a weekly basis.3) Once you have the pet door installed, I suggest using catnip to further entice your pet to become comfortable with using the pet door. Using food after the door installed may entice raccoons, however, I myself did use a dish of food loaded with his treats within the first one or two weeks. (Figured once he got his nose through the door, the smell of his treats would further entice him to enter the house instead of being scared-off by the locking mechanism.)2019.03.10 WARNING! If the pet door is locked, your persistent cat can still bypass the lock to get outside. My cat only takes about ~2-3 minutes to bypass the locking mechanism with his claws & paws. Seems to be like riding a bike to him. Once he learned, he now seems to bypass the mechanism quite routinely now. Be careful and permanently seal the door using a board and some long drywall/wood screws. Using a movable bucket, your pet will still get out but likely will not be able to re-enter due to the temporary obstacle nudged aside, preventing the pet door flap to open full for re-entry. Do not be fooled your pet cannot escape through the door while wearing an "Elizabethan collar" (AKA cone-of-shame), as this would only be a temporary hurdle.2019.05.30 Added photo of door stopping a bunny, dead in his tracks, from breaking into my house and robbing me of all my belongings. Yea, at first I thought he was having a hard time entering the door for some reason again, then to my surprise, he wanted his "catch of the day" brought inside where it's likely cooler and also likely wanted me to prep the fresh kill. I should have, because he later devoured the entire rabbit. If I were a dentist, probably be pulling lucky rabbits paws from between his teeth! Regardless of the size, he still ate two more full cans of food that night and in the morning... Small cat, many stomachs.

After owning this pet door for nearly two years now, I can confirm it is by far the best on the market (and I tried and returned two other brands before buying this sureflap model). (PLEASE GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS REVIEW FOR A PRO TIP ON HOW TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU PET TO USE)I originally bought it for a cat that adopted us (showed up one day in our garden begging for food). He was not an indoor cat and seeing as he came to us, we couldn't just lock him in so the hunt for a cat flap began. Unfortunately, we have seriously cheeky and aggressive racoons where we live and the existing open swing cat flap let those little b@stards raid our kitchen while we were away one weekend.First I tried the Catmate models - useless. The first one they sent me only worked with special even though it said RFID on the packaging. They meant RFID tags, RFID microchips tags You literally had to wipe your cats face vigorously against the door to get it to sense the chip. Back it went. Their customer service was excellent, but their catflap just did not work.So on to the Sureflap. I can imagine installation in a regular door being a breeze - I actually was installing in a thin metal security door, the outside of which has 2 small downward steps immediately outside and unfortunately, it's really not designed to do this. I managed to find a away around it by buying this hard pink foam insulation board from home depot that was about 1.5" thick and using the supplied tracing outline (good move sureflap) cut a spacer. this went on the inside of the door. Now there's still a bit of a "tunnel" on the outside but that extra 1.5" made the difference for it not to protrude too far out in front of those little steps.Why did I get the Pet Flap and not the Cat Door for my cat? Because he was a big boy, a Ginger tabby at a lean 15lbs. He was just about able to fit through the Pet Door, I can't imagine him trying to get through the cat door, so unless you have a petite cat, don't get the Cat Door, get the larger Pet Door. All in all installation was easy but I did have a tiny problem in that the long supplied screws, given my thin door and homemade spacer are just a fraction too long so I had to find a careful balance of tightening them to hold it in place, and not so tight that the plastic casing warps as they press on the inside (you'll see what I mean if you ever have my predicament, but I managed to make it all work).Function: the thing works flawlessly. I mean every single time the cat gets about a foot away from the outer tunnel, you hear the signature click of the locks popping down to release the door. I actually think over time the cat gets to understand this sound as part of the accessing ritual.If you have a really skittish cat then it may take a little while for them to get used to the click but it's really quite minimal and if you're cat is that skittish, it probably shouldn't be outside.Programming is easy, just press the button, get the cat to go in to the tunnel and it licks and displays that he's registered. That's it. there's all sorts of curfew functions and only allowing certain chips to have access certain ways etc (like if you want you cat to be allowed in at night but not go out until morning etc) but my cat was too free a spirit for any of that.The videos by sureflap are great so be sure to watch them for installation and programming.I think the first time I wanted him to go though I taped the thing open and put his dinner on the other side. No issue.Then the next time, had it closed and after a few timid attempts the want for food was too great and he bullied his way trhough. After that, plain sailing.PRO TIP: The only issue (and I'll also add this as a tip) is that there are two magnets, on on each side of the lowest part of the door, that help gravity to "snap" the door in to the resting "down" position. They were a little too strong for even my beefy cat to muscle past and even though he would still get in, he would struggle with the door sometimes. I saw that when he wanted to push open the door, he would always go for the bottom right corner. So thinking about how to make it easier, I found that if you manually open the door to the horizontal position, you can use one of the pick tools (or similar) on a standard Swiss Army knife to pull out one of those two magnets, and I did it on the side that he usually pushed on as that would give just a tiny bit of flex and made it about 50% easier for the act to open the door! I strongly suggest doing this if you have a small dog or cat that doesn't like having to press their face on the door.It's been two year of constant operation and the Duracell batteries are still showing full on the LED.I can honestly say, a person with a background in engineering, this is one of the best working and design electromechanical devices I've ever seen.Unless for some reason this doesn't fit your door or animal, you'd be a fool to buy anything else.

Why did you pick this product vs others?:Not worth more than 20 $. Smart feature doesn't work. Was only able to program 1 of my 2 cats (who had the same type of microchip). Didn't really matter anyway, it doesn't unlock for the identified microchip as advertised. With this type of price tag, it should connect via Bluetooth seamlessly to an app (without a hub) and/or have doors automatically open. If low end garbage cans can open to motion, why not this? I had it installed for only two weeks when our big 20lb cat (who we are trying to keep out during an introduction phase with two tiny girl cats) just barreled through and broke the locking hinges and took out some sort of door insulation fabric. This shouldn't be this easy for an intruding animal to break. This was a complete waste of my time and money and I highly do not recommend the product. Now I have to uninstall this thing (I paid for someone to install) and hopefully replace it with something similar in shape and size because it is totally useless now

So far, so good. Mounting the door was fairly simple. Getting the little morons to use it, not so simple, but we're working on it. That said, the door itself seems well thought-out. My only cocern is how long it will last mounted on a south-facing door in full sunlight?