On today’s Bumperpodcast, Natty talks all about the new dog door that he installed in his house. Or that he’s trying to install in his house – and all of the ridiculousness that has happened because of the dog door …

The Bumperpodcast is an oftentimes hilarious weekly romp around Headquarters, in Coffee-Can Alley, with Natty Bumpercar and his entire gaggle of pals!

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Natty shares the tale of installing a storm door with a dog flap for his dog Popcorn, who has been driving the family crazy with constant barking to go in and out. What starts as a simple home improvement project turns into a comedy of errors involving construction mishaps, a terrified dog who won’t use the door, and children who get stuck trying to demonstrate how it works.

“I never professed to be a door professional, just a door hobbyist, I just do doors on the weekends”

“Because when we train her, when we train our dog, we get treats, she does not give us any treats, no, not even one”

“It’s really a modern day fable… what could go wrong, just might, just may, maybe, be prepared, be ready, set your expectations to disappointment”

Natty Bumpercar: Hey Bumper Podcast, it's me Natty Bumpercar and we got something exciting in the house last week. Just yesterday actually. It's a door, a storm door is what it's called, which is like a door outside your door but it's got a dog door in it, a little doggy flap so that popcorn can run outside and run back inside as she wants, whenever she wants. She wants to go outside, she can just go outside by herself because I don't know if you have a dog out there, any of you, but here's what popcorn likes to do. She's in the kitchen, the old door was there, she would look out the door, she would put her nose by the door and then she'd start barking, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, let me out, I gotta go out, bark, bark, bark, and we're like oh, maybe she has to go to the bathroom, maybe she has to, I don't know, maybe she's got a job, something has to happen outside, let's let her out. Get up off the couch wherever you are, go and open the back door, out she goes. Door shuts, you walk away, you sit back down to get back to work, whatever you're doing, and she's reversed the process, she's outside, nose in the door, barking to get back in, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, I gotta get back inside right now, and this has been our life now for months. The dog's in, the dog's out, the dog's in, the dog's out, the dog's back in, she's barking non-stop, and I was telling this story to somebody and they were like oh, she's got you guys trained, I'm like oh, is that what she's doing? Because when we train her, when we train our dog, we get treats, she does not give us any treats, no, not even one, so I came up with the idea, we'll get a storm door so that we can leave it open so that we can still get a lot of nice light, right, maybe have a little screen so we can get some nice fresh air when spring comes, but we'll get it with a dog door, a little flap so she can come and go as she wants. So I spent this weekend trying to put it in, and I found out, I know this isn't super interesting, but I found out that the door hole was not big enough for the door that I had purchased, the door could not be returned, so I proceeded to start cutting away pieces of the house with a saw, making big noises, making big messes, finally got the door in, door's in, door won't shut, more of a mess, door shuts, kind of, we're still working on it, we're on day two of working on the door, so the door's in, kind of, and it shuts, kind of, which you know, I don't work in absolutes, do you know what that means? It means it's fine, as long as it's in there and working, I'm okay with it, I never professed to be a door professional, just a door hobbyist, I just do doors on the weekends, anyway, so the door's open, and we're like, look, popcorn, you can just come and go as you want, you can go outside, and she looked at it, and she was like, no, no, no, no, no, so they have a little piece of paper that comes with the door, and so you look at the piece of paper and it says, how to train your dog to use a dog door, and I'm like, why do I have to train the dog to door? She can just walk through it, she has no problem plowing through everything else that we have set up in life, why is this flap now going to be an issue? Of course, she's got it, so I, you know, I went on the other side of the door with a treat, whistle, whistle, come here, pup, come here, popcorn, popcorn, popcorn, holding the treat, and I even, like, held the door flap open, because they said that's part of it, held the flap, showed her the treat, let her smell it, she tried to bite it out of my hand, pulled the hand back in through the door, and she's shivering, she's quivering, she's terrified of this new portal in the house, and I was just like, what are you, so I gave her the treat, I was just like, you're okay, we're good, it's okay, but then I found a little can of her old puppy food, wet puppy food, oh, smells disgusting, but evidently to her, delicious, put some in a little bowl, and then back and forth we went, back and forth and back and forth, we did it about 10 times yesterday, just treat on one side, or bowl with the food, out she goes, do it back and forth, and so she's getting a little bit used to coming and going, now, problem being, yesterday, yesterday evening, the children were getting frustrated with the process of training the dog to go in and out of the door, and I don't know if you know this about kids, but they want immediate results, they're like your boss at the end of a quarter, where, oh, they gotta make a presentation to their boss's boss, and they need results, get this stuff done, that's how the kids are, oh, this dog's gotta get through this door, what do we hold, what's the hold up here, get her through, I'm like, we just have to, sorry boss, we just have to train her, oh, not good enough, I want this done yesterday, okay, cool, so we, you know, I'm trying to do the little treat on one side, treat on the other, back and forth, get it into her head that it's okay and she's gonna be fine, and here's a fun thing that they don't really tell you about dog doors, kids, very attracted to dog doors, don't need to be trained to go through them, they need to be trained to stay away from the dog door, the dog flat, the dog door is built to handle a dog that's up to 40 pounds, and so that's, you know, reasonably, it's a nice little size dog, and it is not designed or built to hold a seven-year-old child, or certainly a 10-year-old child, so when your children start to try to, their own training method of watch me as I go through this door, I'm gonna go through the door, I assume this is what happened because I was not in the room, I was called into the room where there was a shrieking, screaming child who was wedged into the door, stuck in the dog door, because they couldn't make it all the way through, because here's a fun thing, if you don't know this, don't crawl into tiny spaces, don't, just, you shouldn't do it, you're gonna get stuck, because here's what happens, you put one arm through, and then your head goes through, and then your shoulders go through, yes, you made it, no you didn't, because your hips, which is, you know, your, it's where your legs go into, your hips are wider than your shoulders, and they don't do the same movement that your shoulders do, so you can't keep going through, is what I'm saying, and so you get kind of stuck, half in, half out, half in, half out, and the dog, you know, will proceed to scratch and nip at you, because you're in the door, and defenseless, so that, there's the screaming, and the shrieking is the realization that you're probably stuck here, maybe for the rest of your life, you don't know, so I rushed into the room to find this scene, got the dog away, put it, you know, put her, you're in another, you're in another room, you're not helping, you're not, you may think you're helping, but you're not helping, and proceeded to figure out how to reverse the process to get the child out. Now, another funny thing is that these doors, while not built to, you know, for dogs over 40 pounds, and not built at all for children to go through them, also not built to hold the weight of a child who is thrashing around as they are stuck inside the door, the new expensive door that you haven't even finished putting in properly, and so what ends up happening is in the child's fervor, their excitement, their desperation to get out of the door, maybe they break part of the door that you haven't finished putting in, but at least maybe, this is all, you know, potential, maybe this happened, maybe I'm still upset about it, so I don't really want to talk about it, it's still fresh in my mind, but you're able to get the child out of the door, child is a little bit scratched up, but okay, overall, door is, you know, not the same as it was when you got it, certainly, but it's still there, not finished, and the dog still won't go through it. It's really a modern day fable, I feel, it's, I'm gonna call this modern day fable, um, what could go wrong, just might, just may, maybe, be prepared, be ready, set your expectations to, uh, disappointment, it's okay, it's okay, because ultimately the child was okay, uh, and the dog today, this is yesterday, the dog has started, uh, getting a little bit better, I was working in the next room, and then I hear the flap, flip-a-flip-a-flip-a, and I look in the kitchen, dog's not there, I was like, oh, well, and then I sit back down, and then I see a little dog nose at the door, I was just like, look who just came back in, and I give her big treats, big, big, big, sweet treats, here, buddy, look at you figuring out the dog door, now you can just come and go, like a teenager in the night, you can just sneak in, sneak out, not really, don't do that to your parents, please, also, don't, uh, don't, don't break things that your parents are still trying to put into the house, it's not nice, it's not helpful, anyway, how are you, are you holding up okay, I'm doing projects, like putting in screen doors, and cutting out parts of my house, the other fun thing with the door is, so it doesn't shut all the way, it only opens about halfway, uh, because when you open it, because when you open it, there's a little thing blocking it, so I gotta take that thing off, but it, uh, you start to open it, and then you have to, like, scooch through a little bit, a little bit of a scooch through, which is fine, you know, it's good, keeps me on my toes, keeps me energetic, all right, you go wash your hands, uh, listen to your parents, be amazing, be awesome, because that's what you are, uh, if you have any questions ever, send me an email, I would love to hear from you, what you're up to in quarantine, and, uh, I can even talk about it on the podcast, the, uh, email we'll try is, uh, stuff, s-t-u-f-f at nattybumpercar.com, it's n-a-t-t-y-b-u-m-percar.com, um, be well, take care of yourself, bumper podcast-cateers, you know why? Because you're important, and you're special. I'm gonna go, uh, go finish working on my door now, because that's my new life, I'm a doorman, professional doorman, Natty Bumper Car, professional doorman.

The post Bumperpodcast #376 – Dog Door appeared first on Natty Bumpercar.