RFID Cat Door in Canada

Raccoons are fine in the park and I tolerate them digging up worms in my lawn or ripping my garbage apart, but I draw the line at having them in the house. Over the years they have trashed an aquarium, ripped up the rug and ruined my sleep, not to mention gobbling the cat food. Twenty years ago, I clubbed one to death in the bath room, after coming home to find it sleeping on the couch. By last summer I had had enough.

One warm night, 3 raccoons entered and made a dash for the cat dish; they knew exactly where it was, having made numerous raids before. This time, however, I was wide awake at my computer. Although one escaped, I cornered the other 2 in the living room. The bamboo club I kept for such a contingency was soon split and shattered, and the coons were lying in pools of blood in the living room. All that remained was to mop the floor and dispose of the bodies.

I thought this would fix the problem for a while, but I had underestimated the persistent bravery of raccoons: the third animal came back again and again, despite the fate of its, probably, siblings. About 4 am I would waken to unfeline noises, followed by grunting, gobbling, gorging sounds from the cat dish area. Several times, I hit it with the broom and kicked it with my bare feet as it made its frantic escape. I never quite managed to grab its tail to drag it back through the cat door and kill it.

I simply had to get a coon-proof cat door. I had tried a door that opened only for critters wearing a collar with a magnet, but my cats would get the collars off in a week or less. Surely there had to be a cat door that identified my cats by the microchips implanted under the skin of their necks.

The only such product I found was PetPorte, made in the UK for use with British electricity. I was able to get around the power problem because the door itself uses 12 volt dc, and so I just needed a 120 to 12 volt transformer. The other catch is that PetPorte works only with European standard RFID chips, but EIDAP in Alberta supplies these to many clinics here, including my vet. This may be of interest to Americans who want to travel to Europe with their pets but can't get chips in the USA compatible with European card readers: Google EIDAP and PetPorte to learn more.

Petporte is working fine now; I no longer jump out of bed at 4 am to chase wild animals through the house. Raccoon lovers will be glad to know that although I no longer feed them, I haven't killed a coon since last summer.