Pee Portal

I did it. I sawed and drilled into my brand new house to install the dog door. It wasn't easy to get up the courage to do that. It's in the garage, but the garage is finished in this house, and the walls look every bit as good as the interior walls.

The whole time I thought of it as a tattoo, or a navel piercing. A scar, yes, but it will look good. And it does. It looks like it was made to be there.

Here's the funny part though. The property slopes steeply from front to back, to allow for the walkout basement, so I knew the outside of door would be high. I guess I wasn't expecting it to be 3 feet off the ground!

So today I will go get a ramp, which could add to the fun of training the dogs to use the door.

Incidentally, my idea of training the dogs for this contraption differs somewhat from the guidelines in the dog door manual. Pet Safe's version involves carefully introducing the dogs to the door, removing the flaps, and encouraging them to come through by use of a treat or coaxing. Then re-installing the flaps.

My method, both quicker and easier, is to grab Coco and throw her through the door from about five feet away. This will show Jake how the door works and give us all a much-needed laugh at the same time.