FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Need to know more about Door Buddy before committing to your purchase? We understand!
Find our most frequently asked questions below or get in touch should you not find the answer.
If you need more guidance with installation and troubleshooting your Door Buddy Door Strap or Door Buddy Door Prop we recommend visiting the installation page for each if the FAQs below do not address your specific issue.
Door Buddy offers innovative solutions designed to provide pet owners with peace of mind and convenience when managing access to different rooms in their homes. Our products are carefully crafted to address the unique needs of households with cats, ensuring feline access while keeping larger dogs, babies, and toddlers out.
Door Buddy's Original Door Strap:
Our original Door Strap is equipped with robust 3M adhesives for easy installation. It securely fastens to your door and door frame, creating an opening wide enough for cats to come and go as they please, yet too narrow for larger dogs and young children to enter.
Door Buddy's Newest Product - The Door Prop:
The Door Prop takes a different approach by replacing your existing strike plate and engaging the door latch to prop the door open. This elegant solution maintains quick and convenient access to secured rooms. With Door Buddy, your feline companions have around-the-clock access to their essential supplies, such as cat litter, food, water, and cozy resting spots, all while keeping curious dogs and babies (as long as they can't turn the door knob) safely on the other side.
What Sets Us Apart:
Both the Door Strap and the Door Prop offer reliable solutions for managing access, but they have distinct features to meet your specific needs. For a detailed comparison between the two, please refer to the FAQ below.
Currently, Door Buddy is available for purchase at TheDoorBuddy.com, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Walmart.com, Ebay.com, Chewy.com, & Etsy.com!
We are confident that you will love your Door Buddy and therefore offer a 60 day, hassle-free, money-back guarantee. If you are not 100% satisfied, simply return it and we will credit back the full purchase price.
However, we are dedicated to Door Buddy making your life easier! We are always happy to help you troubleshoot and will offer personalized suggestions to make it work better for your situation.
For more information feel free to Contact Us or view our Shipping & Returns policy.
Door Buddy variations are intended exclusively for indoor doors. We do not recommend their use on outdoor doors or exceptionally heavy or metal doors.
Door Buddy Door Strap Compatibility:
The Door Buddy Door Strap is versatile and compatible with a wide range of doors. It works seamlessly with standard and non-standard doors, including those with various handle types. Whether you have pocket doors, double doors, barn doors, or even bi-fold doors, the Door Buddy Door Strap has you covered.
Our specially designed 3M adhesive tape is engineered to adhere to most door surfaces effectively. It's not only versatile but also durable, featuring aging-resistant technology that maintains its strength over time. With a solid core center and elastic edges, it forms a secure bond with your door's surface. For detailed installation instructions, please refer to our Door Buddy Door Strap Installation Guide.
Door Buddy Door Prop Compatibility:
The Door Buddy Door Prop is tailored for use with standard right or left swinging indoor doors, including those with various handle types. It may not be suitable for doors lacking a standard strike plate and standard door latch hardware.
As a result, it's not suitable for doors equipped with ball catch hardware, bifold doors, accordion doors, sliding doors, barn doors, or pocket doors. However, it can be applied to some double doors provided they feature a standard strike plate and standard door latch.
For comprehensive guidance on installing your Door Buddy Door Prop, please visit our Door Buddy Door Prop Installation Guide. Here, you'll discover tips, tricks, and instructional videos to ensure your Door Buddy is perfectly tailored to your home's needs.
Door Buddy variations are suitable for use in any interior room equipped with a door. However, it's important to choose the appropriate version based on your door type; please refer to the FAQ - "Will it work for my door" above for details.
Popular Places to Use Door Buddy:
Door Buddy finds its most popular applications in spaces like the laundry room, bathroom, bedroom, closet, your cat's favorite hangout room, or any room you wish to isolate from access by dogs, babies, toddlers, and in some cases, even cats.
Specific Recommendations:
For the Door Buddy Door Strap, it's crucial to note that direct installation on wallpaper or drywall is not recommended. If this placement is your only option, you can enhance its strength and adhesion while reducing the possibility of damage upon removal or with heavy force applied by using the Door Buddy Paint Protection Film.
When installing the Door Buddy Door Strap, it's advisable to position it at least 10 inches above the doorknob or door handle, or at a height that places it well out of reach for children.
Regarding the Door Buddy Door Prop, we recommend discontinuing its use once your child reaches an age or height at which they can open doors. However, if you'd like to explore ways to make it work for baby proofing, please refer to FAQ-11 on the Door Buddy Door Prop Installation Guide for tips on how to modify it for optimal results.
Safety Reminder:
Always remember that when it comes to child and pet safety, no product should replace adult supervision. Use Door Buddy as an additional safety measure, but never as a substitute for proper supervision.
Both the Door Buddy Door Strap and Door Buddy Door Prop are designed to provide flexibility and adjustability to meet your specific needs.
Door Buddy Door Strap: This strap offers high customizability, allowing you to adjust the door opening width from 0 inches up to a maximum of 8 inches, depending on how and where you install it. Simply utilize the tri-glide adjuster on the strap to achieve your desired width.
Door Buddy Door Prop: The Door Prop offers an adjustable width ranging from approximately 3 inches to 5.5 inches. This range accommodates most cat sizes and effectively blocks access for dogs and young children. To make adjustments, follow these steps:
Loosen the small screws that hold the two parts of the Door Prop together.
Slide the parts closer together or further apart until you reach the ideal width for your requirements.
Once the desired width is set, use the provided T8 Torx wrench to securely re-tighten the screws, ensuring they are fully locked.
Important Note: When tightening, make sure the screws are adequately secured. If your Door Prop was initially assembled with Phillips screws, it's recommended to use a #1 Phillips head screwdriver for the adjustment.
Depending on your needs, here are recommended settings for Door Buddy Products:
Widest Width (5 - 6 inches): Ideal for blocking entry to most large dogs while permitting smaller animals like cats and small dogs to pass through freely.
Medium Width (3 - 6 inches): Effective at blocking access for medium and large-sized dogs and preventing babies from entering the room. Cats can still enter as needed.
Narrowest Width (0 - 3 inches): This setting is perfect for restricting access to most cats and dogs. It's recommended for situations where you want ventilation without access or when you're using Door Buddy to introduce pets.
By adjusting your Door Buddy products to these settings, you can efficiently manage room access while ensuring the safety and convenience of your pets and children.
For most large dogs, Door Buddy is indeed strong and effective.
Over the past 8+ years, the Door Buddy Door Strap has proven its reliability for customers with dogs ranging from 12 to 120 pounds. To ensure its effectiveness, refer to the Door Strap installation guide, which provides recommendations for stronger alternative installation methods.
Our newest product, the Door Buddy Door Prop, has been specially designed to cater to larger and stronger dogs. When securely latched in position, the Door Prop exhibits remarkable stability. Even when subjected to pushing or pulling by a dog, it functions as a robust cat door latch, capable of withstanding the pressure exerted by much bigger dogs.
Important Note: It's essential to understand that Door Buddy should never be used to contain aggressive animals. Furthermore, it should not be relied upon as a means to separate children from animals for safety purposes.
Door Buddy is intended to provide a practical solution for managing access, but it should always be used with the safety and behavior of your pets in mind.
Door Buddy Door Strap is most effective when your dog is slightly larger than your cat.
Many of our customers have reported success even when their cat is the same size as their dog. Cats have a remarkable ability to squeeze through tight spots, so you can judge the suitability of Door Buddy by considering your pet's head size or shoulder width.
However, please be aware that Door Buddy may not be as effective if your dog is significantly smaller than your cat. The ideal scenario is when your dog is larger or roughly the same size as your cat, ensuring that the system works as intended.
Both the Door Buddy Door Prop and the Door Buddy Door Strap are highly effective when it comes to crawling babies and early-stage toddlers.
Door Buddy serves as an excellent deterrent because it keeps troublesome areas or rooms out of sight and out of mind for curious little ones.
The Door Buddy Door Strap offers an added advantage as it can be installed at a height that's out of reach for toddlers. However, it's important to note that if a child consistently applies excessive pressure to the door or forcefully collides with it, it may cause the 3M adhesive to detach from the door and/or door frame.
The Door Buddy Door Prop, on the other hand, provides greater strength and durability. However, once children reach a height where they can access the door handle or knob and open the door using them, the Door Prop's effectiveness diminishes. To prolong its effectiveness, consider combining it with a baby-proof door knob cover or a child-proof door lever lock. Additionally, you can insert a stopper between the prop and the door frame to prevent children from pushing it aside and unlatching the door. Detailed instructions can be found in FAQ 9 on the Door Prop Installation Page.
Door Buddy's primary purpose is to simplify the lives of parents and pet owners by offering a more straightforward and convenient alternative to installing cat doors for interior doors or using baby gates, pet gates, covered litter boxes, top-entry litter boxes, or litter box furniture.
It's essential to remember that Door Buddy serves as a deterrent and should never replace proper adult supervision.
There are no distinctions between our dog and baby products. We've designed it this way to simplify the process for all pet parents and human parents to easily find their desired product.
For detailed installation and removal instructions for each product type, please visit the following links.
These pages also offer useful tips and troubleshooting FAQs.
Absolutely! Door Buddy offers a variety of extra uses and benefits that both fur parents and hooman parents can appreciate. Here are some of them:
Improved Temperature Control: By keeping the door slightly ajar, Door Buddy helps regulate airflow between rooms. This can lead to reduced heating and cooling expenses.
Enhanced Ventilation: Allowing rooms like bathrooms and closets to stay partially open promotes better air quality and prevents mold and mildew buildup. Increased airflow ensures that isolated rooms remain fresh and free from stuffiness.
Convenient Room Isolation: Door Buddy offers a more convenient alternative to traditional baby gates and pet gates for isolating specific rooms. However, for stair safety, we always recommend using a baby gate.
No Need for Cat Doors for Interior Doors: Door Buddy eliminates the need to cut a hole in your door for an interior cat door, providing an efficient solution.
Toddler Door Lock: It prevents toddlers from learning how to open doors, serving as a substitute for doorknob covers and door handle locks.
Privacy for Older Siblings: Door Buddy lets older siblings regain their privacy by keeping younger siblings out of their room. Just ensure that the Door Buddy Door Strap is installed high enough to be out of reach for the younger ones while remaining easily operable for the older ones.
Effortless Pet and Child Proofing: Both Door Buddy products offer user-friendly pet and baby proofing solutions. You can operate the door normally, fully close it, and use Door Buddy with just one hand, both from inside and outside the room.