Talk:Pet door

Merge dog door and cat flap

Dog doors and cat flaps both have similar designs and functionality. They can be merged to cover pet doors in general. —Ost (talk) 20:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. See below. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:56, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes a cat flap is just a cat flap

Please keep the cat flap entry, it is unique, and needs to stay that way! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.121.58.147 (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that "cat flap" should stay as is. People who look for it are looking preisely for it, not a generic discussion. In addition, "cat flaps" really aren't doors, in the customary sense; had I been looking for generic pet doors, I would have said so. The only real reason to merge cat flap into pet door is to save space -- a worthy goal, but one which can be overdone. Cokelittle (talk) 16:56, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Nothing noteworthy at that article distinguished it from the broader topic. It's a hole in a door or wall for a pet, period. So, yes, a cat flap is just a cat flap, and a dog flap is just a dog flap, and there is no difference between them other than what animal happens to be using it at the time. The majority of manufacturers do not even label them "cat" or "dog", just "small" or "large". No one in over 6 years has come up with even one independent, reliable source making a case for cat flaps/doors being in any way categorically distinguishable from the dog variety. The idea is silly, really. A small dog is a cat door. Go to any pet store for proof. If you want to fork the articles again, go find some reliable sources that support such a move under WP:SUMMARY and WP:SPLIT, or it will be pretty much a textbook example of a WP:POVFORK. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

PS: You have no evidence to back your assertion that readers looking for the phrase cat flap Ior dog flap or cat door or dog door or whatever) "are looking preisely [sic] for it". Everything we know about actual Wikipedia usage militates against such an interpretation. In one typical case, people have encountered a term they don't understand and are looking for information on it, in which case the merged article is tremendously more helpful than two separate ones, each suggesting that there's something magically special and inimitably unique about pet doors for cats especially vs. those for dogs and vice versa, which is of course total balderdash. In the other common case, people have some idea what "dog door" or "cat flap" means, but want more information, such as history, materials, mechanisms, etc., in which case a merged article is, again, vastly more helpful than two separate ones, each containing some but not all of the relevant facts, and treating the other half of the topic as unrelated (more balderdash). If some reader out there really is so off-beat that they would actually become confused or enraged by the fact that we have a more complete general article that adequately covers both dog and cat doors/flaps, this is not Wikipedia's problem, Wikipedia can't help them, and they need some kind of psychological counseling or medication. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 14:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Merge, partial rewrite & addition of new material performed

Done. Both of those articles remained low-quality stubs for over two years since the last time proponents of their separation insisted they could and should be developed as separate topics. Those efforts failed (well, really, they simply didn't happen at all to any notable degree). Experiment over, moving on with a proper article now. I've added material on dog stiles, including a photo (the only one on Commons showing one in action), pet gates, greatly clarified wording in several places, quotation of Chaucer mentioning them, sourced background info, etc. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

They're called Cat Flaps. I don't understand why there was ever any argument over this. I can only assume the proponents of the merge are American. These things are almost universally referred to as Cat Flaps in the UK, and have always been as far as I know. "Dog Flaps" have only recently started to become more common, but are are a derivative of Cat Flaps anyway and are still nowhere near as common as Cat Flaps. Nobody would ever use the term "pet door" - it just sounds silly. The article should be entitled "Cat Flap" as all other types are simply derivatives of the Cat Flap. 109.148.225.202 (talk) 17:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

And getting the pet to use it?

There is no mention here of just how you get your pet to use a newly installed ‘pet door.’ Seems like a critical part of the story… GianniBGood (talk) 19:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)