Rule #1--Don't have a pet door. I live in a semi-rural area, and if I had a pet door, every possum, skunk, raccoon, fox, small coyote, ground squirrel, jackrabbit, stray dog and feral cat in the county would find its way into my house. If that poor woman had not had one, her little terrier would still be alive.
“Rule #1—Don’t have a pet door. I live in a semi-rural area, and if I had a pet door, every possum, skunk, raccoon, fox, small coyote, ground squirrel, jackrabbit, stray dog and feral cat in the county would find its way into my house.”
One of our cats found the neighbor’s pet door and discovered that he really liked the neighbor’s dog’s food. The dog was very old, small and blind so she basically hid from the cat, as far as we can tell. Anyway, one night said cat decided to explore the house and at 3 a.m. curled up in bed with one of the owners, scaring her to death.
We solved it by blasting the cat with an air horn from inside as my wife shoved him through the pet door. By the third time we couldn’t even get him near the door.
Rule #2 -- Discreetly and humanely murder any pit bulls in your neighborhood when their owners seem even remotely cavalier about the dogs. You owe it to yourself, your neighbors, and to all the kids in the neighborhood.
Rule #3 -- Have a pet door. Because now, its worst vice is what it should have been all along -- that it might admit racoons in the middle of the night that will raid your kitchen!
Hey giotto — actually, I agree; living in a semi-rural place myself, I’d never have a pet door because what you say is RIGHT! My friends, who aren’t even in a particularly rural place, had a big fat racoon squeeze its big butt through their tiny pet door! Just the same ... the problem here wasn’t really the pet door, it was the *&%($& pit bulls.