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Advice needed on doggie doors

Caraline

Well-known member
Hey guys,

We have really nice, heavy doors in our house and a few months ago when I bravely told my husband the Cavaliers needed a doggy door he said "no way!". Being the quietly persistent person that I am, the last and 147th time I told my hubby that the Cavaliers needed a doggy door he said "well you go and pick them out I'll install them". See, all you guys out there... nagging does have its merits :p

Ok, so to the real question. We have solid wooden doors but also security doors on the outside. You know, those screens made of metal & with fly screening on it.

So is it possible to have a doggy door on the flyscreen & also on the wooden door, so that both can remain closed?

Also, any tips about the best kinds of doggy doors and what to avoid. Errrr, I don't want to get this wrong! icon_whistling
 
Good work with the nagging!! I, too, finally convinced my husband we needed a doggie door!

We had a similar situation, though instead of a wooden door, we had a steel door. Luckily, we rarely use the door that has the pet door, so we simply removed the storm door from the outside. My husband wasn't too happy about it, but there really wasn't a way we could find to make it work. Since we don't use the door much at all there wasn't really a need for it, anyway. We had a steel door, afterall!

We got our doggie door at Home Depot. My husband said if we were going to do it, we were going to get a good door that was weather resistant and sealed as well as possible. We ended up with the medium Ruff Weather Pet Door. You can see it here: http://lnk.nu/homedepot.com/est

This is what our door looks like:
Newdoggiedoorinside.jpg


The doggie door has two plastic flaps instead of just one. Both flaps have magnetic strips that keep them in place until the dog goes through the door. There's a few inches that stick out of the door on both sides to help reduce water and other weather from getting inside, and there are fuzzy sides to help reduce drafting around the plastic flaps.

Because it does have two flaps and there's a bit of width to the door, it probably takes a bit more training than a standard one-flap door, but both Cedar and Holly figured it out in just a few days. Now they go in and out at will, and Holly has even figured out how to bring crap--like sticks and seedpods!--back inside with her.
 
We had a doggy door at our previous house. We preferred to install it on the outer storm door. I felt the house was more secure that way, plus I didn't want them to go outside without my knowledge.

I wouldn't recommend installing doggy doors through both doors. I think it would be too difficult for a little dog to maneuver through both.
 
Oh! I forgot to mention: The door we bought has two panel inserts that close off the door so nothing can come in or go out if you don't want them to. You can see the two inserts leaning against the wall in the photo.
 
I don't know how I would do it without my doggie door ;) My guys picked up on it immediately and my fosters always get it right away. Our dilemna was the screen door. We have our doggie door at my office door that leads to our back yard. We had a regular screen door on it but had to leave the screen door propped open. Our solution....a disappearing screen. It works great! When the door is closed the screen is retracted and doesn't get in the way. It works great.
 
I wouldn't recommend installing doggy doors through both doors. I think it would be too difficult for a little dog to maneuver through both.

This is one of the things I was wondering about. I want to be able to have the wooden door closed in winter or the screen door closed in summer (to keep insects out, which Au has aplenty). Maybe if having them trying to go through 2 doggie doors I might have to prop one open, depending on the weather. I wonder, if I took the flaps off one of the doors would that make it easier to get through or is it the gap between the two doors that is problematic? Are the flaps easily removed & then put back on? In this case I could alternate which flap was left on, depending on the season?
 
Next time we put in a doggy door, it'll be in the wall... not through a door. A hole in a door is forever... you can repair the wall.

KC
 
That was one of my persuasive arguments earlier... to put it in the wall rather than in the pretty door. But my husband howled me down with laughter for suggesting such a preposterous thing :confused: Our house is brick, but I thought we could knock out a few external bricks & put one in, and then later if we ever wanted to sell-up we could put the bricks back in. I am glad to hear that I am not the only person to have such a thought.
 
I'm thinking the gap between the two doors might be the problem, Caraline. The retractable screen sounds like a good solution. :)

Cindy, from your doggy door you have a fenced in, protected area like a large kennel run, don't you? I think you posted photos. That would be the ideal situation for me. Charleen has a nice set up too. I'm trying to figure out how to do something like that at my house.icon_nwunsure

We have glass french doors from the kitchen to the deck/backyard. So we'd have to go through the wall as suggested. Lately I've been propping the doors open so they can come and go as they please, hoping no mosquitoes or flies will find their way in.
 
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I'm thinking the gap between the two doors might be the problem, Caraline. The retractable screen sounds like a good solution. :)

Cindy, from your doggy door you have a fenced in, protected area like a large kennel run, don't you? I think you posted photos. That would be the ideal situation for me. Charleen has a nice set up too. I'm trying to figure out how to do something like that at my house.icon_nwunsure

We have glass french doors from the kitchen to the deck/backyard. So we'd have to go through the wall as suggested. Lately I've been propping the doors open so they can come and go as they please, hoping no mosquitoes or flies will find their way in.
Geez... I completely forgot!! We, technically, have 2 doggie doors. The one pictured above was recently installed in a back door that leads out into our fenced in backyard. It's actually a door at the end of a hallway that leads to our basement. The hallway is a branch off of another hallway (interesting layout in our house!), and there is a door on the main hall we can easily close if we dont want the girlsl to get out.

The OTHER doggie door we installed yonks ago when Cedar was just a nipper. We didnt have the yard fenced in then, so we needed an area she could be outside without being in danger. We never use the space now since we fenced in the yard. We have a climate controlled workshop on the back of our garage, so we put a doggie door through the workshop wall. It leads outside to an enclosed doggie run; inside it leads to a built-in kennel that my husband put under his workbench. Here are photos of THAT doggie door--note that this door is a single flap door and it is put through the side of the house.

Because the workshop has a raised floor, the door did not match up with the ground. We made Cedar a little ramp to get in and out:
IMG_0010.jpg


We bought a dog run kit from Home Depot, and then we reconfigured the shape to fit the area we had. Two sides of the area are closed in by the workshop and garage, then there fencing goes around the rest. Outside the fenced area, there's a sidewalk, and then another wall of the house. It's an extremely sheltered area. Notice we had to put smaller guage fencing around the inside; Cedar's head was small enough to fit through the chainlink when she was a pup!

kennel1.jpg


kennel2.jpg


Inside the workshop, the doggie door gives access to a nice sized kennel area.

workshopkennel.jpg


Thanks, Cathy, for reminding me of this set up. I'm so embarrassed I forgot about my own house!! :eek:
 
WOW!! Now that is a really nice set up!! Wish I had something as "posh" as that!! My cuddle are housed in the kitchen mainly which backs out onto the garden so I have a large dog gate (taller baby gate) on the kitchen door into the dining room and generally just leave the back door open so they can come and go at their leisure!! We are thinking about a dog door for the winter though, just need to find one to through a UPVC door is all!!
 
Thanks, Cathryn. We were very happy with it when we needed it. It's a shame we no longer use it. Every now and then I dog sit for friends or family visits, and we leave their dogs in the run while we're out (for those who are not kennel trained, that is). So every now and then it gets some company!

Your set up sounds like it works, at least for part of the year! Here in Kansas, though, summertime bugs would be an issue. The bugs are one of the geographic issues my British husband has STILL not gotten used to--he is always freaked out by the big, freaky bugs we have here. We have to have screens on all of our windows and screen doors if we want to have any breeze. Otherwise, the bugs would carry us away!!
 
Cindy that is an amazing set up you have there. I am going to have to show those photos to my husband :D Love the one with your? face peeping through the doggy door.

Thanks so much for the input guys. You've all armed me with some great ideas. Will let you know how we go.
 
There are a few terminologies I don't know about.... I only talk Aussie :D So what is a "UPVC " and what is a "weather door". I am wondering if this is what we call a security (flyscreen) door?
 
Cathryn, in relation to your UPVC door (Caraline it a hard wearing plastic insulated door which 5 point locking system - as in turn one key and 5 bits move to lock the door heres a link so you can see http://www.upvcdoorcompany.co.uk/order-online-step1.asp , have no experience of weather doors or flyscreens in Ireland!) I have a doggy door in mine.

Shortly after we got Cleo, I got one installed. Its just the regular medium sized doggy door you can buy in any petshop. As the lower part of my back door had panels the dog door would have looked very wierd if I had installed the door as it was, so I contacted my builder for advice.

He said the important thing to note with UPVC doors is that the manufacturers are always increasing the efficinecy of the insulation in the door. My door is now 2 years old, and when I had the doggy door installed it was circa 12 months old and the insulation had been upgraded. The builder knew someone who had scraps of old UPVC and that person had a flat bit that was big enough to fit my door. He collected the doggy door from my house - installed it to the new PVC bit in his workshop and arrived around the next afternoon and it took 5 minutes to pop in place. He left me the old pannelled bit of PVC, so when we move in a few years we can pop the original panel in again, so as not to put off potential buyers!

I hope this makes sense - as you can see I'm completely on top of the technical jargon!
 
It is done!

Update:

Well thanks to you guys, I now have a doggy door installed. I ended up choosing one that only has a single transparent flap. I decided the single flat would be easier to get through and also that the transparent flap would be a little less daunting as the dogs can see what is on the other side. For the time being I just have the one installed in the solid wooden door. As it is winter here at the moment that was the most important one to do and I have the outside security/flyscreen door propped open.

For a day or two I am leaving the flap taped up so the dogs can just come in & out without having to deal with the flap. Little Beau was through like a flash when I waved a chicken neck for him on the other side, and he is freely going in & out with a little encouragement. Sonny is a bit more cautious. We went through twice for some chicken necks but he is highly suspicous about the whole deal.

I am very confident that in time, they will both be flying through without pause.

Again, thanks everyone for helping me make my decision. :D
 
That's wonderful they have their own door. At our previous house, Geordie was the cautious one, but it only lasted a short time. Hopefully Sonny will get used to it quickly!
 
I have a wooden plus security screen door at the back entrance.

There is a doggy door on the security screen one. I leave the wooden door open. The weather is warm most of the time here so it's fine like that.
 
I am going to buy a second one next time I am in town as I think I'd also like one in the screen door. Then in summer I'll leave the wooden door open but the screen one closed, so we can get the breeze.

Yep Sonny is our cautious boy, he is the one that sniffs all food I offer him for poison :rolleyes: skids his wheels if he hears a strange sound... and Beau is our Mighty Mouse. It is kind of funny having two with such different personalities.
 
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