Opposable Thumbs Revisited

I posted several months ago about one of our cats, Luna, who has learned to open our front door. We don’t have a circular door knob that requires an opposable thumb. Instead, our front door has a flat flange that you press down on to release that little wedge between the edge of the door and the door frame. About a year ago, Luna learned to jump high in the air land precisely on the flange with her front paws and push just enough with her back paws to pop the door open just before the latch re-engages. Yes, we lock the door, but that doesn’t keep Luna from continuing to try at all hours of the night and morning.

The other night, Mrs. CL and I were discussing possible solutions. Yes, I know, maybe just letting the cat come in at will might be one of them, but sometimes she does things like drag dead vermin to the front door, etc.

Mrs. CL wants to put adhesive strips around the door handle. Her theory is that the cat will miss and then find herself stuck vertically to the door one day and then stop trying.
This would be like flypaper at a ninety degree angle, but the neighbors might find it a bit strange to find a cat stuck to our door handle in that fashion.

My proposal was that I take half of a Leggs pantyhose container (I honestly don’t know if they still exist) and cut that in half then glue the half-dome just over the latch. The cat would then try to jump up, hit the rounded bit of plastic and slide off without engaging the latch. My wife insists that it would make our door look like it had a wart or something. I even promised to paint the dome the same color as the door. She still refused. Women can be terribly impractical sometimes.

My friend Karl Rove suggested that we blame the cat’s antics on liberals. I asked him how that would solve the problem, but he just shrugged and said, “Who cares about solving anything as long as half of America thinks it’s someone else’s fault.”

I then kicked Karl in the groin and told him that liberals made me do it. For some reason, our cat found this very funny.

In the meantime, the dogs, possibly inspired by the cat, have learned to open the sliding door and the side door to the garage. At least the cat doesn’t leave nose marks on the door when she comes in. One day, a bird found its way into our living room as well.
I’m convinced that our house used to belong to Dr. Doolittle.

I know there are many smart people on the internet. Some of them even come by this blog. If you can suggest ways to cat and dog proof our doors, I’d appreciate it.

chancelucky