No one likes being awakened at 4 or 5 in the morning by a dog or cat who needs to go outside and do their business. Pet doors can ease or even eliminate this burden on pet owners, but they come with a few concerned of their own.
Security is a primary concern for anyone looking to install a pet door in their home. You want to make it easy for the pets to come and go, but not so easy for the local raccoon population or the more criminally minded humans.
Having a fully functional alarm system in place before installing any kind of pet door is a very good idea – unless you live in one of the very few areas left where you don’t need to lock your doors at night. There’s probably not a pet door on the market that will stop a determined burglar, but with a reliable alarm system in place, you can make sure that your pet’s door is just as secure as any other door or window in the house.
Some doors are made to detect a certain key or tag that you can attach to your pet’s collar. That way, the door will only open for your pet and not the snoopy neighbor cat or the skunk that just wandered into your backyard.
Any way you look at it, having a pet door installed in your home is a bigger security risk than not having one at all, but with the proper precautions, it can be a worthwhile tradeoff. In the tug-of-war between convenience vs. security, today’s technological innovations are making it easier than ever to achieve a livable balance.
