The Biggest Dog Flap Ever!

A Reluctant Butler

Whilst I openly acknowledge and accept that I am Chief Servant to the cats, I am very much of a reluctant Butler to the dogs!!!

Cats are much easier than dogs and mostly take care of themselves, hence why I started off life as a cat person, whilst dogs require more of a personal service.

I am mainly to be found working on my laptop in my office and need to focus to get anything of any great importance done, hence why I don't like to be disturbed, and therefore, a reluctant Butler. 

The Door Challenge

We all live in a tiny cabin, with no doors dividing spaces, other than for the bathroom, the heat in the Cederberg is scorching and the winter freezing, and in order to manage the air-conditioning or heating, the doors need to be kept closed.

This created a problem for both the dogs and I, as they were not able to come and go freely, requiring someone, mainly me, to stop whatever I was doing in order to open and close the door for 7 dogs, whenever they required!

Being the Head Doorman was not my favourite job, nor was it sustainable, and we needed an ingenious solution to provide indoor and outdoor access for the dogs, whenever they wanted, whilst keeping the cool or heat in, depending on the season.

An Ingenious Solution!

As everyone knows, the best ideas are given to us on the loo, probably because it's the only space that we get a few minutes to ourselves, although not so much in this house as there is always a dog or 3 that just have to come to the toilet with me!!!

On this particular day, I noticed that the toilet door was a barn door, which is totally inappropriate for a toilet door and wasn't something that we had installed, but a light bulb went off and presented a perfect solution to our problem!

We couldn't install a dog flap as it would create congestion and fights, so instead, we swapped the toilet door with the main door, and swapped the stable door sections around so the top flap was fixed and the bottom door opened and closed and tada, the biggest dog door ever!!!

Expanding The Idea

This worked perfectly, the dogs loved it and so did I, as now, they could come and go freely, but we needed to expand the idea to keep the cool and heat in.

I remembered the plastic flaps that people walk through when you are in a butchers, and we installed some heavy 250 micron clear plastic on the top of the door frame to create an easily accessible barrier that we or the dogs could walk through, and this did the trick!

Now, we had a fully functioning house that we could all come and go freely in, the top section could be locked in the normal way for safety and security, and the dogs were able to go outside whenever they needed or wanted to.

Always Growing

With so many animals, we are constantly having to come up with new ideas to challenges and all of our solutions are divinely inspired.

I am constantly amazed at the solutions that are literally given to us, that we simply have to implement, I say simply, but it's not all that simple as we have to do everything ourselves, but you get the idea!!

As we expand and grow, our spaces expand and grow, and the need for quiet spaces expands and grows, but this is a very special environment to live in and every day is a blessing.