Microchip cat flap... Heeeellllpp!

[JorisBonson]

We've been having a lot of visitors sneaking into our house lately so upgraded to a microchip cat flap.

Totally solved the visitor problem, but our 2 just won't use it 🙄 girl cat just sits outside or crying, boy cat is scared of the "click" noise. They used our old one no bother.

Any tips??

Allergic to Dreamies?

DH left early this morning for some sport and left boy cat outside. He only used the catflap to come back in! 🎉

Just girl cat to go now.

Yay!

Girl cat still fleeing at the sound of the click and appears to be building a little house outside as she has to live there forever.

One of our visitors came today and looked very upset!

Update - boy cat, who doesn't have 2 brain cells to rub together, has mastered it and is enjoying his freedom and full food bowls.

Girl cat, the very intelligent Bengal, is still petrified of the click and has taken to singing the song of her people to get in instead. We've had to stop pushing her through because it's stressing her out. Luckily she's getting on a bit and stays on at night.

We had a very sad visitor today pressing his paw against the flap wondering why the buffet was closed.

So she has you trained already!

It's far safer to keep your cats in overnight. They get used to having a "big sleep" and mine always ask to be put to bed.

In the winter they usually stay in all night, summer it is painful to keep them in!

Our visitors are definitely night owls and know that there is food at 5am when DH leaves for work.

Luckily mine took to it right away - they'd never had a flap before but we just encouraged them through and it's been fine. I think you might have to gently (physically) guide them through them give them a nice tasty bit of tuna on either side, then go to the other side and hope they will come through fir another treat! They will get it eventually!

My dcat is a bit of a scaredy cat, and most definitely does not like the fancy pants microchip cat flap 🙁 Enlisting help to manhandle her through, even with a nice treat on the other side, just made her more frightened. She loved the summer, when the door was open all the time!

Now she just avoids even going near it, so I'm thinking of replacing it with an ordinary one (which was there before I replaced it when I got my cat!!). When she seems slightly less scared of 'Strange Things' I'll try again.

Count your blessings, OP. My junior cat really loved the click, she used to sit beside the cat flap sticking her neck out and making it click….not going through it, just clicking. Cost us a fortune in batteries, and the noise was….annoying.

As your girl is older it may take her longer to learn.

It took us about 3 months to teach our demented cat to use a microchip feeder (younger cat was eating all her food) but she got there in the end.

I find cats will do anything if you find the right food reward. For ours it is Cosmas Snackies from Zooplus.

When we first got ours we trained our cats to use it by putting them in their cat carrier and holding it up against the cat flap. They would do anything to escape the carrier so they quickly figured out that pushing the cat flap door and hearing the click was their route to freedom. Seemed to do the trick for them, they don't even notice the click now.

Ooh that's devious, I'll try that!