Can your pet open doors?

My dad has a cat called Ralph. He's mainly white with tabby blotches, and he's sooo stupid we love him to bits but he's a total idiot.

He does this cute thing with a door that he wants to go through which is slightly ajar. Our other cats have always been able to hook their paws round the door and pull it open. Not Ralph! If the door is ajar, he puts both his paws on it, and pushes it shut. He's a big fat boy as well haha, so it properly clicks closed. And then he looks at you, like 'so? what now?'

Do other people's animals do this?!

I've always wondered if there were cats that couldn't open their own cat doors! My cats never had any trouble .. in fact occasionally I would find neighbours cats in my living room who had successfully used our cat door.

One of my friends had trouble teaching her cat to use its cat door and she'd sometimes find it sitting outside the door when she got home. She had to train it with treats to use the door.

Beyond mammals, I don't think any other pets are capable of open a door due to physical limitation.
My fish for example, they will never be able to open a door even if I want them to.

My dog cannot open doors, though I would not put it passed her. My sister's Australian Shepherd used to jump up and hit the handle of the back screen door. She would let herself outside.

My first cat was all looks and no brains too. He couldn't figure out that a door that swung away from him and was sitting an inch open could be nosed open. The stray girl I took in as a companion for him had all the brains he lacked. The door to my room at the time didn't latch but sort of stuck shut. She figured that if she hooked her claws under the door and pulled up (sort of "plucked" at the door) she could jiggle the door loose and open it.

My cats are not good at opening doors. Maybe that's because the door is too heavy for them. Or maybe they find it easier to just go out by climbing up to the rafters and passing through the gaps between the roof and the wall. That works for the big ones. The small ones will have to wait for me to open the door for them. Sometimes, they just sit around the front door facing out. That's when I know they want to go out.

Out of the six cats we have had, three have been very adept at opening doors. I hate cats in my closet, getting fur on my clothes, so we had to figure out how to keep them from opening the sliding glass doors. I came up with a hook and yarn closure to keep the doors from being opened by little paws.
The best story I have of one of our cats was my first cat, an anniversary present from my hubby, who liked opening the guest bathroom door, which was a sliding pocket door. We had an exchange student and her first night in the house, she used the guest bathroom. While on the toilet, the door suddenly started to open and she was terrified she was in a pervert's house, when she noticed it was just the cat being nosy. She kept the door locked after that whenever she used it!

Yes, both cats can open doors. No matter how heavy the door is or how narrow it is, they can both open them. Unfortunately, they can't open door when it's fully closed. They both like to sit in the kitchen cupboards, but since they are always closed, they are out of luck.

andrew, that reminds me! My Tonkinese can open any cupboard door. The cupboards are always kept closed, but he can open them at will. When I won't let him come into the computer/parrot/exercise room with me, he often throws temper tantrums and slams the kitchen cupboards open & closed. We have one cupboard in another room we keep extra parrot and cat toys in. We have to keep a chair against the cupboard door to keep him from dragging everything out! He's a very naughty boy!

Yes my dog can open doors only when it's ajar. She pushes the door with her nose and would squeeze her way in, it’s so cute. When the door it fully closed, she would sit there and whine by the door. When you ignore her whining she won’t stop she would just get louder until you get annoyed and open the door.

Yes, my coonhound mix used to be able to do it on a rare occasion. However I never directly saw her doing it, but I'm guessing she maybe was able to bite the knob and turn her head or something like that.

There is no way a cat can physically open our only door to our apartment. However, our two year old Bengal sometimes tries to pull the latch, then turn the door knob. Even though I know she will not be able to physically open the door, it still makes me want to have the lock turned into a deadbolt that you can only open with a key.

How our dog is, if the door is slightly cracked open or to a point where it could be opened even further, what our dog likes to do is pull the door to where it opens for my dog. If the door is closed shut, my dog likes to go ahead and bark to try and gain entry. Other than that, my dog cannot open a closed door.

They can both easily open a door that isn't fully closed. They don't encounter fully closed door often (except for the door to the apartment, which is also locked all the time), and I don't think they could open them, but I have seen them jump at the door knobs, so maybe it's just a matter of time...
They can also open cupboard doors, especially if they're a bit old and looser. We don't have a cat door, but they probably wouldn't have a problem with that either. (It's actually a bit strange for me to imagine a cat that does )

(06-14-2012 04:56 AM)HK86 Wrote:  My dad has a cat called Ralph. He's mainly white with tabby blotches, and he's sooo stupid we love him to bits but he's a total idiot.

He does this cute thing with a door that he wants to go through which is slightly ajar. Our other cats have always been able to hook their paws round the door and pull it open. Not Ralph! If the door is ajar, he puts both his paws on it, and pushes it shut. He's a big fat boy as well haha, so it properly clicks closed. And then he looks at you, like 'so? what now?'

Do other people's animals do this?!

Awww, he sound so cute and helpless My cats could open pretty much anything, doors, gates, lids, windows, whatever. They developed many strategies in time and sometimes they work together! One of them pulls the door and the others go in. They are so cute to look at! I need to get some video cams around the house to film them 24/7, the things I would see...

Carling can, we had to change the door handles to the round ones because he kept letting himself into our bedroom and sleeping on the bed. I didn't mind him doing it but Guinness decided to play football on it one night and also decided she was going to dig up the mattress. We came up the stairs after a long hard shift working in the pub to be greeted by half the bed sheet down the stairs. Thankfully she hadn't damaged the duvet or pillows but the mattress was ruined! We told her off and she just walked back in the room, picked up the football gave us the look and walked off!

Whenever I am about to walk my dog, he likes to get up on two legs with his two front paws on the door. He then proceeds to muzzle the doorknob and then look at me waiting for me to open it. He knows that is where the door opens from, but he has no way of turning it. One time however, I left my dog roam free while I went to the store. When I came back, I couldn't get into my apartment, had to call maintenance to break into my own apartment. Turns out my dog had figured out how to lock doors. At some point while I was gone, he must've heard a noise outside. Doing his usual routine of front paws on the door, he must've accidentally (or who knows, maybe intentionally) locked the second lock. It was a weird exchange with the maintenance crew telling them my dog had locked me out.

This is a little different, but I have a chinchilla that has been known to open his cage door. I found this out a few years ago when I had someone pet sitting for me. He said that he had to catch Honeyboy a couple of times and return him to his cage. I thought at first that maybe my pet sitter didn't latch the door completely. Then I saw for myself how this sneaky rodent shook the door until it unlatched. Since then, I have added clip locks to his cage door. He hasn't figured those out (yet).

My dog knows how to open the arcadia glass door. I know it seems odd but if it is left unlock he will jump up and use his mouth to slide it open and walk right in . I didn't believe it at first when my kids would tell me . But than I saw him do it a couple of times . He is one sneaky dog for sure.

That's hilarious!

Our cat Boba opens the cupboards and climbs inside to knock over food if we are not moving quick enough to feed her. Sometimes we will be trying to sleep at night and we hear banging and think someone broke into the house. Nope!its just Boba. She opened the cabinet under the bathroom sink but could t push it open enough to STAY open to get back out. She'd push it and it would smack shut again with an obnoxious noise.