I had an older model of this gate and it was great. The new version has a plastic sleeve-type latch that must slide over the end to lock it. It is not shown like this in the picture. But it is very difficult to use and requires two hands to position it just right with a tiny gap between the two pieces of wood in order to slide the latch over. I would no longer recommend this model. Also I actually had to search it on YouTube to figure it out. It is so difficult to slide over that I thought I must be doing it wrong.