I am in cat flap HELL!

[BazandGem]

When Rossi first started using his cat flap he would give it a pounding and pace around the house yowling for a good few minutes before figuring out it was locked for the night. Now we're down to just a couple of bops with his paw and then he finds something else to amuse himself with - usually scratching the sofa legs 

I call him in when it gets dark and give him a couple of Dentabits - a treat for him and good for his teeth  - which is a routine we've stuck to every day since he's been using the catflap and he's got used to now - the trick is to time it right so he isn't too put out at missing valuable moth-chasing time!

Bazza had free access night and day, but as he vanished in the middle of the night  , I'm not taking any chances with Rossi.

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

I would be worried like Lesley cos Sasa broke through the cat flap and the barracade and also ran away for 7 days to punish me........amd boy did it work!

I have since discovered she is terrified of being shut in anywhere but know that yours are not like that.

Misa and Sasa spend all day indoors sleeping and most of night out hunting but they art relativley safe, so guess yours are just trying to act like cats LOL

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

It sounds like he's learnng!

I'm sure Mosi and Dave must be related

[Feline Costumier]

Well, last night was significantly better. When I let him out of the lounge he came straight to bed and only got up to check he wasn't wrong about the cat flap being locked a couple of times. Chilli also decided to test it out a couple of times too

So today they are under house arrest until mid afternoon so they can hopefully see that being noisy and naughty does not reward them

Chilli learns quite quickly, Dave on the other hand likes to test his boundaries for a considerable amount of time. It's only taken me two years to stop the morning wake routine

[LesleyW]

Be careful as if he gets very persistent he may break through the flap, which is what mine did.  Because it is in their own cat kitchen I then found a small bedside cabinet (which has a basket on top and inside) to put in front of it but Jenny learnt to push it out of the way.    I now have a piece of wood screwed to the floor which holds the cabinet in place when it is in front of the flap.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

Can you block it off in some way when it's locked so that he can't see the actual flap?  Maybe he will be ok when he can't see it.  Otherwise I think you'll just have to tough it out and make sure you don't reward his behaviour when he's scratching at it etc.  Hopefully he'll eventually get the message that he can scratch or whine as much as he wants but you won't respond.

[Feline Costumier]

Nope, just the sort that locks to either, open, in only, out only, totally locked. I have thought about putting something in front of it but so far can't think of anything a determined Dave wouldn't just move or knock over.

Driving me bonkers!

Just to say though, this is just normal Dave behaviour!

[Kay and Penny]

do you have a cat flap with a sliding opaque door?

there's not many of that sort around these days, but they are much better for someone who wants to close the flap at times, as when the door is down it is obvious to the cats that the cat flap won't open

[Guest]

Oh dear! We boarded up our cat flap and I am starting to worry about the winter now Ella and Effie go out. My other cats went out (13 years ago) when they pleased but there wasn't a happy end to that story so Ella and Effie are only allowed out when we are home, which is fine at the moment but......WINTER!!!

I would dread the girls being out when we are at work as we live near a school. I think Ella and Effie being indoor cats for their first two years mean they are less street wise so they stay closer and don't go off near the main road as my others did. We live on a cul de sac. The thing is Ella and Effie come back in to see what we are doing every thirty seconds so how they will get on in the winter!!

The girls have a curfew of 9pm whoch I know they would not respect if we had a cat flap. Ella moands for about an hour after she is in now, so if we had a flap she would be the same as yours. Effie is less bothered! 

[Feline Costumier]

So i finally decided tot each Chilli and Dave to use the cat flap as it's getting a bit too chilly to have the front door open all day. As they have a hooded litter tray with a door all I did was show them how it worked and voila! Oh and getting very drunk with the neighbours and forgetting to lock it overnight on training day

Now, however, Dave will not accept cat flap opening hours. Last night was a round robin of him scratching and banging at the cat flap for aaaaages til I snapped and chased him away with a quick squirt of water. This was not working in its usual way as he kept going back to the cat flap. So I ended up shutting him in the lounge. All was quiet for a couple of hours then the scratching at the lounge door commenced. So I let him back out. One more go at the cat flap and a chase away, he finally settled down again.

Until a few hours later and again he was at the cat flap, I tried to ignore him but it went on for an unbearably long time. So back in the lounge he went and this time I did ignore the scratching at the door but it wasn't easy.

Now, he's had a go at the cat flap again and he's back in the lounge, with a little door scratching. Oh no, make that a lot of door scratching.

I don't know what to doooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! I'm fully regretting them learning what the cat flap is for! And of course being a cat, he spends all day, when he could be out running around, inside, in bed, showing total disinterest in going out!

I thought my sleepless nights would be back to a minimum since the recent truce he's called on spending two hours waking me up! Apparently he's just switched tactics to punish me!