Care Guides

My dog, Biscuit, taught me this: if you install a pet door for the dog, the cat will own it first. We put the flap in the back door one Saturday, still finding sawdust in our socks on Sunday, and by lunchtime the cat was swinging through it like she'd signed the mortgage.

I'd wanted one for months. Biscuit is a beagle, and beagles need to be outside more than they need to be anywhere, it sometimes feels like. Every morning at six he'd stand by the door and stare, and I'd let him out, and five minutes later he'd scratch to come back in, and then out again, and the whole routine wore a groove in the kitchen floor. A flap seemed like the obvious fix, the thing that would finally let him come and go without me playing doorman in my socks.

The install was messier than the box promised. The back door is one of those half-glass panel jobs, and cutting a hole in it felt illegal. I measured twice, then a third time, then called my brother who said the measurement was wrong, then measured again and decided he was wrong. The template that came with the kit was printed slightly off, which I only noticed after the first cut, a curved corner that didn't quite match the hole I'd already started. We patched it with a spare bit of trim and pretended it was always meant to look like that. Nobody who visits has asked, which tells you how much anyone notices a door.

Then came the weather stripping question, and this is where I nearly gave up. The kit included a thin foam strip that the instructions treated as optional, which is a trap, because anything called optional on a pet door will come back to haunt you. The first night after fitting, the wind found the gap and the kitchen dropped about four degrees. I woke up to a draft across my feet and a cat curled in the warmest spot near the radiator, smug as anything, clearly pleased with the new entrance she hadn't asked for. So I went back and properly sealed it with a better strip from the hardware shop, and that helped, though the flap still clicks when it swings and at 3am that sound is louder than it has any right to be.

Here's the funny part, and I almost didn't believe it. I trained Biscuit to use it for a week. Treats by the flap, nudging it open with my hand, praising him like he'd solved a math problem no one else could. He understood the concept, I think, but he also understood that I would open the real door for him if he looked sad enough, so he kept doing that, the big brown eyes and the single mournful whine that has ended every argument we've ever had. The cat, who got no training at all, watched him for two days from the top of the sofa, and then one afternoon just walked up and pushed through. No treat. No ceremony. She's been in charge of the door ever since, and she uses it roughly twenty times a day to patrol the garden like a tiny security guard.

Security was my wife's first worry, and she was right to raise it. A pet door is a weak point in a wall you spent good money to make solid, and pretending otherwise is silly. Ours is too small for a person, and we live on a quiet street where the biggest risk is a neighbour's kid, but I still fitted a lockable panel for nights. It slides in from inside and blocks the flap completely, and it took me about ten seconds to make a habit of fitting it before bed. That bought me the peace of mind to actually keep the thing instead of boarding it up in a panic after the first cold night.

Drafts came back in winter worse than expected, not through the seal but around the frame, where the door's old wood had warped a hair over the years. A roll of draft excluder from the same shop fixed most of it, and I learned to check it every month because the cat's enthusiastic entrances knock it loose. Biscuit eventually started using the flap on his own terms, usually to chase the cat through it at full beagle speed, which defeats the quiet-morning purpose but at least gets him moving without me pulling on boots.

Cleaning the flap became a small chore I didn't expect. The clear panel goes cloudy with nose prints and the cat's whisker grease, and a quick wipe with a damp cloth each week keeps it clear enough that Biscuit can see through to the garden he pretends to guard. The magnets that pull it shut weakened a little after a wet winter, and I replaced them with stronger ones from a model shop for a couple of quid. Nothing about this was as plug-and-play as the box implied, and I say that as someone who reads instructions, which my brother does not.

The cat now uses it to bring us gifts, which I could do without. Last week she dropped a chewed leaf on the mat, then looked at me like I should be grateful, then went back out as if she had a schedule. I am, sort of. The door gave her a small independence she clearly relished, and it gave Biscuit a project he mostly ignores in favour of the real door. If I did it again I'd buy the slightly dearer insulated flap and skip the foam-strip nonsense from the start, and I'd measure the cat, not the dog, since she's the one who actually runs the place.

Would I do it again. Yes, but not for the dog, and not without the lockable panel I almost skipped.