Pets come with many emotional benefits, such as love, care, and just being great company.
However, there are many responsibilities for pet owners too.
As a dog owner, you’re in charge of another living creature and as a result, responsible for their well-being.
This means feeding, watering, and any changes in drinking and eating habits, providing shelter, bathroom breaks, and general happiness.
Electronic dog doors are the perfect solution for two of these by providing general happiness and bathroom breaks by allowing a pet to come and go as they please.
There are a number of reasons why this is beneficial.
Firstly, it stops a cat or dog from holding their bladder while they wait for an owner to return, which is not good for your pet’s health.
It also prevents a dog from becoming bored in the house with nothing to do, which can lead to them playing up and creating a mess for you to come back to.
These are just two main benefits of investing in an electronic dog door, others include the additional exercise will be able to get by coming and going at their own leisure and the overall positives this will have on their health. However, even with these advantages in mind, how can you choose the best dog door for your pet?
How to Choose the Best Electronic Dog Door for Your Property
There are many considerations to make when choosing an electronic dog door, these include where exactly you want the door to placed within your home (usually facing out to the front or back of your property) as well as how large the door will need to be.
This obviously depends on the size and breed of your dog so it is vital to take this into account when reviewing electronic dog doors.
The whole point of automatic dog doors is that your pet can come and please as they like. This isn’t possible if you choose a door that is too small for them to the fit through with ease.
When measuring your pet for an automatic dog door you should take in to account their height, width, and rise.
Another consideration to bear in mind when choosing the perfect automatic dog door is the security of your property. You want to ensure the electronic dog door keeps out both intruders and stray dogs. Many modern dog doors now guard against these dangers so checking out the reviews below will ensure you make the right choice for your home.
Why Purchase an Electronic Dog Door?
What makes electronic pet doors better than just normal pet doors?
Although many people assume this not to be the case, there is an increased level of control over the opening and closing automatic dog doors.
Instead of an open door policy for any creature that can fit through the gap, many electronic doors come with magnetic keys that only allow specific pets wearing the magnetic key to open the door.
Many doors also come with a timer that allows them to not open from the inside after a certain time.
This means that once the pet comes inside, it stays inside until the time limit is up. This could be overnight or maybe during a family party.
The electronic pet door can also just be turned off and made back into the equivalent of a normal door with no exit or entry.
There is also the option to fit an electronic dog doors internally in your home and use it as an interior pet gate.
These can be electronic too allowing for specific timed entry and closure to restrict access to different parts of a house at different times of the day or night.
They can also come with smaller gates to allow a cat or small dog through while keeping larger pets restricted from certain areas.
This could be good if there is a larger new addition to the family that hasn’t learned all the rules yet but the older smaller pet still wants to get around.
Electronic Dog Door Reviews
- High Tech Pet Power
- Solo Pet Door
- Endura Flap
- Bug Off Screen Doors
- SureFlap Microchip
- PetSafe SmartDoor
- PetSafe Extreme Weather
High Tech Pet Power Electronic Door
The High Tech Pet Power Electronic Door is a motor-driven vertically-sliding door that is activated by an ultrasonic collar. Basically, this means that the door operates from a chip in the collar which admits an ultrasonic pitch. The sound isn’t heard by people or by animals and activates the door only when on a direct approach to the door. The dog could run past the door or sleep next to it and the doggie door would stay closed.
The pet has to come on a direct line of approach to trigger the door to open. Granted the door has to be on the right setting. The door comes with four operational settings: in only, out only, full access, and closed and locked. The door is wind and weatherproof and comes with an air tight seal.
The door also automatically deadbolt locks to add a level of security to the door as well. The translucent door is made from a bullet proof resin so it is quite difficult for an intruder to kick out the door. The largest available size for this specific door is 12 and a quarter inch by 16 inches and is rated for up to 100 pound dogs.
Solo Pet Door Automatic Electronic Dog and Cat Door
The Solo Pet Doors brand is well known for over 25 years for producing high quality dog and cat doors and this door is no different. Solo Pet Doors designed this door with pet’s safety in mind and thus made the door a gravity close to prevent any accidental closing on your pet. The door also is very secure with an added locking mechanism for when the door in closed just to help ease any nerves from a possible home invasion.
The electronic door opens through a magnetic key that can be attached to a pet’s collar. Since the doggie door works through magnets, there is no need to worry about water damage or battery lifetimes. Solo Pet Doors also wanted to make sure that every dog is provided for, so they designed the electric door in 10 different sizes to fit dogs of all breeds. The largest door is a whopping 36 inches by 14 inches.
The doors also vary between wall installs and door installs to fit any owner’s needs. The door does come at an average fee for items such as this, but performs well and is made with high quality materials.
Endura Flap Dog Door
The Endura Flap Dog Doors for Walls is a great example of what an owner wants from a wall fit doggie door. The door comes in varying sizes with options for single and double flaps. The doggie door is weatherproofed and designed to not compromise the insulation of a house. It also comes in 3 different color schemes to match most siding colors: bronze, white, and tan.
The Endura Flap Dog door comes with a premier sturdy security locking cover to close off access to the wall door when it is no longer in use. It should be noted that this door is not an electric dog door and as such does not come with all the added safety and security benefits that such doors have. However, just because an owner cannot have specific control over what pets use the door or specific control over how and when the door opens does not mean that this door is not still worth the money.
The door really competes well for its ability to seriously not compromise the insulation of a house. Many users remark on how effective this door is in wide swinging temperature environments such as a high desert. This door still runs with the back despite having technological drawbacks.
Bug Off Screen Doors
The Bug Off Screen door is by no means exclusively a pet door. It is simply a screen door that does not need to be pulled or pushed to be opened. However, this example is included to provide an illustration for those readers interested in it after reading the paragraph above. The door is rather simple in its construct. It only needs to be attached to a door frame and from there the screen just hangs.
It is spilt down the middle and kept together by a row of magnets. Any pet can push the screen open without much stress. This also makes it great for carrying plates in and out of the house for back yard barbeques, but that’s beside the point. The screen door would be the cheapest option on the market, but is definitely not the most practical. The screen offers no insulation or weather protection at all.
It has no type of security system in place to prevent intruders and definitely no settings on when the door can and cannot be opened. But like the backyard barbeque example, this door has other practical uses that make it worth the money and if keeping bugs out is the only real concern in a doggie door – this door is perfect for that.
SureFlap Microchip Pet Door
The SureFlap Microchip Pet Door works by using an RFID collar tag to detect the presence of your animal near the door. Upon the reception of the RFID signal the door opens, allowing only specific pets into the house and not any intruder animals. This uses the same technology as many credit and debit cards use today (the chip readers).
The SureFlap also comes with a programmable curfew mode to disable the door’s opening mechanism during certain hours. This is not only helpful for keeping pets in or out but also in protection against burglars as the locking mechanism will clamp down during the curfew hours preventing anything from getting through this electric doggie door. The Pet Door comes in two different colors: white and brown.
The door is powered by 4 C-cell batteries which will last for up to one year of normal use. The SureFlap is weatherproof and provides some insulation to the house. Though the door itself only comes with one RFID chip, the system itself can store up to 32 RFID chips in its memory making it perfect for multi-pet households. This specific door is designed for large cats and small dog in its size. It is easily programed and can be installed in doors, windows, and walls.
PetSafe SmartDoor
This unit is relatively inexpensive compared to the other units reviewed in this article. PetSafe is a well-known company for electric doors that promises quality and performance. This door comes with programmable selective entry, exit, and auto-locking settings.
The system provides a key to allow for specific pets to enter and exit. The system also stores the information of 5 pet’s keys, making this accessible for multiple-pet households. It operates on 4 D-Cell Batteries which are not provided with the unit and must be purchased separately.
The PetSafe SmartDoor comes in with three modes: unlocked, locked, and automatic. This means that the door can be safely lock down, unlocked for anything that wants to wander in towards it, or unlocked by only the chip transmitters. It has a range of 3 feet to unlock the pushable doggie door.
This doggie door is energy efficient and is weather sealed with the PetSafe guarantee that it put with all of its pet doors. This door can be painted to match any door color or siding color if a wall option is chosen.
PetSafe Extreme Weather Door
The PetSafe Extreme Weather Door has a unique 3–flap system with a center insulating flap that regulates heat and cold perfectly to adjust to your house. The company reports that it is 3.5 times more efficient than a traditional single flap pet door to make it as weatherproof as possible for a simple flap door system. The Extreme Weather Door is not also electric door option.
This means that it is also lacking the security that is provided from an electric door which guarantees unwanted animals from entrance into a house. Still the door is good for animals up to 100 pounds in weight. Still the door comes in three sizes, a small, medium, and large dog option. The company also designed the door frame to be paintable so as to match the door it is put in.
This option is also available in a wall fitting as well and the material can be either plastic or aluminum. The PetSafe Extreme Weather Door is considered the best insulating non-electric system offered by the company. It is air tight and thanks to the 3-flap system the Petsafe Extreme Weather Door is capable of making the claim as the most weather protective non-electric dog door on the market.
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Are There Alternatives to Electronic Dog Doors?
An alternative to cutting a hole into a door during installation or buying a door with a doggy door already attached is a split screen door that links with magnets.
The screen door only makes sense in very few limited environments, but for those places, it could be a great alternative. The door is split down the middle with magnets running along the slit keep the screen door together.
When the dog or cat wants to leave, it can do so by just pushing up against the door and opening the magnets. The downside to this is that it has no monitoring system, so any animal can walk into the house if it so chooses.
Whatever the wants or needs, there are generally electric pet doors that will meet those demands, whether it is inside or out, big or small, in the door or in the wall, there are many options of doggie doors with high security and quality to suit any situation.