a new dog door, sort of

It all started because of Cooper. He loves being outside. Not really doing anything special out there, just sitting on the lawn most of the time watching the birds and bugs. I've never had a dog quite that crazy about being outside although Harrison liked it too. The others are content to follow me around.

Before the bugs arrived, I left the door in the sun room open so that he could come and go as he pleased. That's getting to be less of a good idea as the mosquitoes are starting to make their presence known.

There just isn't a good place for a dog door. The door has a large window with internal blinds and there isn't room on either side of the door. Putting a dog door elsewhere in the sunroom wouldn't work too well either as the dogs would have a heck of a fall without steps to the ground.

I mentioned this one evening when we had our friends Al and Rhonda over. Al mentioned that he had seen an ad in a magazine for a Bug Off magnetic screen door that might work. I checked it out online and ordered one. The nice thing is that you can still open and close the door while the screen is there.

From the inside looking out:

And from the outside:

The screen slides onto a pressure rod that fits snugly in the doorway. It velcros onto the door frame at the sides. There are powerful magnets in the split and at the bottom of the center opening so that the door can be opened easily by pushing it and closes again on its own. Weights along the hemline keep it hanging straight.

If you don't want the screen door you can just pop it out and roll it up for storage. It's pretty slick and it wasn't very expensive.

Dan was worried that the dogs wouldn't figure out how to use it.

I wasn't worried at all. It didn't take long for Bentley and Robbie to learn to push through it.

Cooper needed to be shown a couple of times before he was confident.

Austin, the very cautious dog, needed to be convinced with the lure of cookies but even he was going in and out on his own within a few hours. It helped that it was soccer night in the park for little kids' teams and the dogs always feel the need to go outside to announce to the neighborhood that there is something happening on soccer nights. Good motivation to rush through the door, especially for Austin the Defender of the Universe.