So we got a kitten. Sooty. Jo soon grew to love her; I slowly grew to tolerate her; then eventually to quite like her... sometimes.
This is her when she was little... she's 10 years old now. And a few months ago we started getting unwanted visitors coming in through the cat flap at our house.
I remember it happening once before, a few years ago. We solved it then by getting one of those cat flaps that only triggers for cats wearing a special collar with a magnet on. The problem was that Sooty kept losing the collar. I think the magnet probably caused it to snag on fences or something. Which is a problem because (a) you have to keep replacing the collar, and (b) the cat is locked out if she loses the collar. Anyway, as soon as I switched back to a normal collar she didn't lose any more... and the foreign cats had stopped coming in by then so I just switched back to the old flap.
But recently a persistent invader has been coming in. I've scared it off a few times when I've found it in the kitchen. And Sooty has scared it off a few times too... but I think it has been stressful for her to do that, now that she's older. It probably leaves it's scent in the house too, which isn't nice for her.
I didn't want to go back to the magnetic flap again, but thought I probably should. So I was moaning about it to a friend. I said something along the lines of "wouldn't it be great if a cat flap could read the microchip in the cat's neck and let her in without any need for a special collar!" ... and my friend said "mate, you can buy those!"
Oh. Technology leaps way ahead of me.
So I bought one. They aren't cheap, at about £60, but it is brilliant. No more invaders and no more worrying about her losing her collar and getting locked out.
Isn't it great when technology actually delivers just what you need?!?
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