A recent television programme highlighted to many cat owners for the first time that their home might be invaded nightly by next-door’s moggie looking for a free lunch.  Which is not surprising, given research by SureFlap has shown 65% of pet doors in cat owners’ homes are unsecured.

Judith Bank, Marketing Manager of SureFlap – developers of microchip-operated pet products – says the data revealed a major opportunity for pet retailers.

“We had assumed that most cat owners have a cat flap and we are encouraging them to trade up with a SureFlap; however the statistics showed that nearly half of the cat owners surveyed did not have a cat flap at all.

“The data also showed of cats with non-selective cat flaps, 51.1% had experienced a neighbour’s cat invading their home through the flap, and 24.8% had been attacked by neighbourhood cats coming in through a non-selective flap.

“The results, from the Neighbourhood Cat Campaign, included a good number of our own customers and readers of Your Cat Magazine so this suggests that the ownership of cat flaps by the wider public is probably lower.”

SureFlap customers are typically people that have become concerned about cats entering their homes and scaring the resident pets.

But to see how prevalent the problem was outside their customer base CatWatch Day - part of the Neighbourhood Cat Campaign - was launched and publicised in the national press and on the radio. To learn more about their cat’s behaviour, almost 600 owners watched their cats on May 6 2013 and record what they saw.

Judith continues “The results from CatWatch Day and the Neighbourhood Cat Campaign show the situation was worse than we had thought and suggests that the majority of cat owners considering a pet door could be persuaded to spend a bit more and keep their pet safe and secure, with a microchip-operated pet door.

“Invasion of the home causes considerable stress to the pet and in some cases they are injured in fights.  Our research has also shown that cats hurt in fights are more likely to develop other stress related illnesses, such as hair loss and itchy skin.

“There is also the unpleasantness for owners when cats spray in the house and the cost of feeding all those extra animals!”

Similar research with vets revealed far more cats were injured by other cats than were hurt in traffic accidents, and that owners were largely unaware of the problem.

For more results visit www.sureflap.co.uk/nccreport.