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Giving pets a way out Mail Tribune / Steve Johnson Labrador mix Brandi Alexander sticks her head out of a pet door at the home of her owners, Ed and Jeanne Alexander of Ashland. Though the Alexanders are content with a flap-over-a-hole model, other pet owners are spending up to $700 on high-tech doors with electronic sensors. Ashland couple goes for simplicity, but others shell out hundreds of dollars for high-tech doors By Mark Freeman For the past decade, a well-placed hole covered with a plastic flap has been the door to the outside world for Lily, an aged and gravitationally challenged white cat. Ed and Jeanne Alexander of Ashland have let Lily, and later the Alexander family�s 5-year-old lab, Brandi, venture between their garage and side yard through a small yet practical pet door. "It�s really handy," Jeanne Alexander says. "The dog and cat use it to get outside." If the Alexanders ever decide to trade up, they would be astonished at how high they could go to please Lily and Brandi. One of the latest crazes among America�s free-spending pet owners is high-tech and elaborate pet doors designed to let dogs and cats move in and out of the house easily while keeping neighborhood pets � and even the occasional opossum or raccoon � from unauthorized entry. Once a simple hole with a plastic flap over it would do. Now, pet-lovers are installing elaborate systems with automatic doors and even electronic sensors to open and close for their pets much like an electric garage door. But don�t shake your head too hard. The pet-door industry will dig into the pockets of America�s dog and cat lovers to the tune of up to $25 million this year, says Willie Wallace, vice president of sales for the Tennessee-based Radio Systems Corp., which makes and markets the PetSafe brand of doors. "It�s amazing how much money people are spending to keep Muffy happy," Wallace says. "It blows my mind to watch the consumer spend." Pet doors can range from about $20 to well over $700. The high-end models come complete with special collars with electronic sensors for opening and closing the doors. Locally, Pet Country in Medford sells about 50 pet doors a month, mostly to owners of small- to medium-sized pets. Mary Patterson of Medford says her two dogs and two cats all use a pet door between the family�s wash room and back yard. "I like that every time the cats and dogs want out, they don�t whine and cry until I open the door," Patterson says. "They take care of it themselves. Pet self-reliance." But most pets need help in learning how to use the doors. Dogs usually learn by banging their heads through the opening once or twice; cats, however, often need to be enticed with food before getting comfortable with using the doors. That was the case for Lily and Brandi, with the former needing plenty of cajoling before the cat would regularly use the door, Jeanne Alexander says. The family used to keep it open but found that raccoons were burglarizing the garage and stealing the pet food. Now, Jeanne Alexander says, they make sure to latch the door at night. At 15, old Lily has gained enough weight and lost enough speed that she has to use a specially fashioned wooden step to negotiate the door. But the Alexanders don�t expect to replace their old-style pet-entry with one of the electronic gizmos just quite yet. "That�s too much technology for us," Jeanne Alexander says. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA