Doggie Doors – When Getting the Right One is Half the Problem

It’s a common feature in many a dog owner’s home to find their home installed with dog doors. Still, despite being experienced dog owners, you could still face some problems that have to do with your dog doors. It never hurts to learn something new about what you may already know – here’s a list of those problems, so you can plan ahead in case you’re buying a new dog door.

Mistakenly locking/forgetting to lock the dog door. The aim of having a dog door is to forget about those annoying moments of having to get up just to let the dog in and out – that’s fine and good – but this can have a backlash. You may have had to take care of some errands or some extra work and fail to come home on time – that means the dog is still capable of coming in and out as it pleases. Similarly, you could lock the dog door forgetting to check whether the dog came back in. You could just lock your pet outside.

Automatic dog door problems. An automatic dog door opens and closes upon sensing a particular device nearby, a device on your dog’s collar. This way, only an animal with the special collar the door senses can activate the door’s opening and closing. But the batteries on the dog’s collar may run out while the dog is outside the house. It may not be able o get back inside. If your room is far from the doggie door, you might not hear the barks and cries. That’s not a situation you should let your experience. There’s also that embarrassing situation when your dog brings home a friend. This can happen when the friend-dog follows too closely when your dog enters the dog door.

Dog door height. Should you have a small, toy dog or a few medium-sized dogs, that means bigger dogs won’t be able to get inside – if you get the right size. Dogs are resourceful creatures, and can squeeze through openings as long as they crouch and crawl though. The same goes for dogs that have grown in size. But if the dog door’s height remained the same despite the growth spurt, you can imagine the consequences. You could have an inconvenienced dog that may have eventual injuries because of the dog door height it is forced to contend with.

Loss of heat or cold. For dogs owners with many dogs, a stream of dogs constantly getting in and out means insulation problems – and energy expenses going up. If you reside in a place where it’s cold most of the year, that heat loss can compound into a lot in your energy bill. If you live in a house that’s air-conditioned, the same energy loss can happen. The air leakage made constant by the dogs’ comings and going increase your energy costs.

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