Flap Jack!

We live in mosquito country. There are rice fields all around us and that means stagnant water that breeds mosquitos.

We’ve become accustomed to a mosquito-free house because the dog door lets our dogs to and fro without admitting swarms of bugs to the screened back porch and thence to the interior of the house.

But that was before Jack.

Like most Aussie pups, Jack spends all of his waking hours looking for stuff to play with and chew. And unlike Pete, who is smaller in stature because his dad was a miniature Aussie, Jack got very big and strong very fast. He now towers above Pete and he’s only 9 months old.

Jack took an interest in the dog door flapper a few months ago and yanked it out of its mount. I rescued it before he could chew it to pieces, but chose not to reinstall it until he showed signs of calming down a bit.

However, we’ve been attacked in our sleep by mosquitos the last few weeks and I decided it was time to take action.

I removed all of the dog toys from the porch and blasted the mosquito congregating spots in the corners with heavy doses of RAID. Then I reinstalled the dog door flapper. And I finished up by sucking up the surviving mosquitos with the Shop Vac.

Reinstalling the flapper proved to be a little more complicated than I expected. If you have a PetSafe pet door and need to replace or re-install the flapper, here’s how:

From the inside, undo the eight sheet metal screws that hold the pet door frame to the door (two on each side) and remove the left, right, and top trim pieces. Now, gently but firmly push the top of the now-loose frame forward so it protrudes on the outside of the door. Undo one of the screws on the upper edge of the frame and shift the top and side pieces to expose the track where the top of the flapper goes. Slide the flapper onto the track, replace all of the screws in reverse order and voila! you’re done.

I just saved you the hassle of having to puzzle it out on your own.

You’re welcome.