The Dog Door Changed Everything

The dog door changed everything.

Before animal control rose to prominence, around 1900, dogs were largely free to roam, bite, breed, and defecate where they wanted.

The results was not pretty, and soon laws were passed.  Beginning around 1870 cities began to employ professional dog catchers who caught and killed as many as 13 million "excess" dogs and cats a year (in 1970) by drowning, gas, asphyxiation bullet, and injection.

Massive urbanization in the first 30 years of the 20th Century was followed by massive suburbanization after World War II.  As car prices dropped and incomes rose, more and more young families sought cheaper houses and better schools outside of the urban core. The new American ideal was now a stand-alone house, a yard with a white picket fence, two or three kids.... and a dog.

But dogs didn't fit too well into this new world. Long hours at work, followed by long commutes and the rapid rise of women in the work force, meant a lot of dogs were either chained 12-24 hours a day in the backyard, or else left in the house to pee, poop, or chew up things without supervision.

Things began to change in the mid-1950s with the marketing of commercial dogs doors by RCR International and a company called Johnson.

Now dogs were free to come into the kitchen and living room, and go out again into a fenced yard. No one had to be actually be home for a dog or cat to do their "business".

Eureka!

In cold weather dogs could be warm, in hot weather they could be cool, and they could always be dry.

Most importantly of all, dogs and owners could now spend hours after work cuddled up next to each other watching the latest in human entertainment: the television.

The human-animal bond becomes very strong when you and your dog have sat through five seasons of Gunsmoke, four seasons of Marcus Welby MD, and every episode of I Love Lucy, Laugh-In, MASH, All In the Family, and Friends.

The dog that once might have been put to sleep when age and illness first appeared, was now a close friend for whom you were willing to shell out extraordinary sums to keep alive another six months.

With the advent of the dog door, our canine friends were bathed more, fed more, and saw the veterinarian far more often.  A new market sprang up around the sale of dog crates, x-pens, and dog toys of every kind.

Clearly, the dog door changed everything.  This is not to say that some form of dogs and cat entry did not predate the 1950s; it did.

The first mention of a “dog door” is actually of a "cat hole" — a hole put in the side of a house or barn so that a cat or terrier could enter the building in order to kill mice and rats.

Geoffrey Chaucer described such a cat hole in the "Miller's Tale" in the late 14th Century. In the narrative a servant, whose knocks go unanswered, uses a cat hole to peek in to see what is going on:

“An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord
Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe,

“And at the hole he looked in ful depe,
And at the last he hadde of hym a sighte.”

You will have to read the tale for the rest of the story, but suffice it to say, it's more than a bit randy!

To close, let me round out with a few key dates in dog door developments after Chaucer:

1892 - Mason, the makers of guillotine and "pickwick" kennel doors, begins making and selling ready-made kennel and pet enclosures.

1946 - RCR International, which makes more than 3,000 products including weatherstripping, insulation components, and floor protection products, begins sale of the Easy Screen Pet Door, which is still made today.

1952 - Johnson begins making pet doors. Johnson was later bought by Petsafe (Radio Systems) who continued making the same door, sold as the Petsafe Ultimate (now no longer made).

1958 - Carlson was founded, specializing in well-insulated double action doors for commercial kennel applications.

1972 - Pride Pet Doors is founded making the same "flap" pet doors that Johnson once made and sold.

1976 - Patio Pacific is incorporated and markets a 'panel' pet door for sliding glass doors.

1986 - High Tech Pet Products begins marketing "electronic" dog doors that are opened and/or locked with an electronic fob.

1991 - PetSafe is founded and it eventually acquires other pet door companies such as Johnson (1998) and US Pet Products under the parent company "Radio Systems" name.

2005 - Endura Flap created a dog door for extreme weather.