Review on 🐱 The Cat Cavern Interior Cat Door by Fred Reid

I've been buying cat doors for way longer than I should have. Compare, contrast, etc. I didn't want a standard square flap door. In our last house I put them in and then the cats didn't like the doors so I took them off and then the doors just looked ugly with holes for hinges and locks. I ended up buying 3 doors because. I couldn't tell which one I would like based on the descriptions and reviews. So I ordered this door, Kitty Pass and Cathole. I lined them all up in one photo so you can see them side by side. I decided relatively quickly that Cathol wouldn't work. It comes in raw wood (kudos for using real wood!) and has screws (kudos for using real screws!) and then a "brush" part. When the brush is in place, my larger cat (and maybe even my little one) gets too tight and can't actively clean the brush. I was concerned they wouldn't fit through the hole and/or wouldn't like the feel of the brush as it has a very rough texture, like the brush I use in the kitchen to scrape food off of pots and pans . If I didn't use a brush there would be no seal between the two sides so my hollow door would be visible. I didn't like it either. So, goodbye, Cathole. So it was between the cat aisle and the cat cave. I took care of my son, wet cat food and our larger cat trying to see if she could fit through the hole. Maybe. But since the hole is at the bottom of the door, he has to lie on his stomach to slip through. Again, I was concerned that this would discourage him from using the door (and therefore the tray). So that left me with a cat cave. To be clear, even before I selected this door I had him walk through the circle to make sure it fit his girth (my son looked like a tamer holding wet food to one side of the circle and trying to to keep the circle between the two (cat and food!) It fits, no problem. Next came the installation. The instructions contradict themselves. The instructions say to make a markup 2" from the bottom, but the template itself says to make a markup 3" from the bottom. I made 2 inches to avoid too much of the inside of the door in the circle as the front mounting glue can't reach the inside areas. If I had to do it all over again I would probably go 3 inches and find a way to fill in the space behind the facade. The instructions also say to center the template on the mark you made 3 inches up. Not. Place the bottom of the stencil on the 3" mark and use a pencil to draw a vertical line down the center to center the stencil. Other people install it on the side of the door; I chose the middle because I like symmetry. In the photos you can see our cat Mara looking into the hole and then how she crawls out of the hole (damn it, my phone's camera lags behind for a very long time!). She had to duck a little to get through. She is our little cat, about 9 pounds. Our other cat is slightly larger and weighs about 16 pounds. He needs to crouch even more using that 2 inch height. I think this will work well and it's much more aesthetic than square doors.