History
The Oxford English Dictionary records the first use of the phrase "cat flap" in 1957 and "cat door" in 1959, but the idea is much older.
In rural areas, cat doors (often simple holes) in the walls, doors or even roofs of grain and flour storage spaces have long been used to welcome feral cats to hunt rodent pests that feed on these stores. Human semi-domestication of wildcats dates back to at least 7,500 BCE in Cyprus, and the domestic cat was a part of everyday life in grain-dependent ancient Egypt (ca. 6,000 BCE onward). Nowadays, this function is mostly lost, but in some rural areas, such as Valencia, Spain, and Vaunage, France, farm cat doors and holes (Spanish: gateras, French: chatieres) are still common.
The 14th-century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer described a simple cat hole in the "Miller's Tale" from his Canterbury Tales (late 1300s). In the narrative, a servant whose knocks go unanswered uses the cat door to peek in:
An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord
Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe,
And at the hole he looked in ful depe,
And at the last he hadde of hym a sighte.
In an apparent early modern example of urban legend, the invention of the pet door was attributed to Isaac Newton (1642–1727) in a story (authored anonymously and published in a column of anecdotes in 1893) to the effect that Newton foolishly made a large hole for his adult cat and a small one for her kittens, not realizing the kittens would follow the mother through the large one. Two Newton biographers cite passages saying that Newton kept "neither cat nor dog in his chamber". Yet over 60 years earlier, a member of Newton's social circles at Trinity, one J. M. F. Wright, reported this same story (from an unknown source) in his 1827 memoir, adding: "Whether this account be true or false, indisputably true is it that there are in the door to this day two plugged holes of the proper dimensions for the respective egresses of cat and kitten."
Modern cat flaps are popular in some countries even in urban environments, particularly the United Kingdom where it is estimated that about 74% of cats have access to the outdoors.
Dog doors are common in suburban North America, where they mostly lead to fenced-in yards. Pet doors are also common between suburban homes and their attached garages, so that pet-related mess (cat box, dog food, etc.) can be kept in the garage with pets having free access.
Read more about this topic: Pet Door
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