Thread: Cat Door?

I would say elismom has hit the nail on the head,can't see a beagle hurdling a baby gate,other thing is if your cat is ID chipped then you can buy flaps that you program to let only the animals through that the flap recognises but gate seems the easiest & perhaps cheaper way to go....

How about a bit of firm training to stop the dog going into the basement?
We sometime have doggie visitors in our house, and we don't allow dogs into the cellar where our cat litter trays are.
If you are very clear about which areas of the house the dog is allowed to use, and which are out of bounds, they soon get the idea.
Perhaps you could have another temporary litter tray elsewhere in the house as well, until your cats get used to having the dog around.

Thanks to everyone for your replies! I'm going to start with a simple baby gate and see how that works out. There are a couple little gliches I didn't mention in my original post. The house basement is a half-basement, contiguous with the rec room/family room, so the beagle (baby pic here two years ago, along with my Maine, Jasper) will have frequent access to the area. The second issue is my other cat (not a purebred Maine) is older, shorter, a little arthritic and prone to not use the cat box if confronted with any change in routine. He's also easily food-enticed, so hopefully food on the other side of the gate will do the trick in getting him to get used to making that leap! I'll also put a soft place to land on the descent and we should be all set. Again, thanks for your quick replies and advice---I really appreciate it!