Pet portals on your RV?

Traveling with pets just seems the natural thing to do. Sharing with Bowser or Fluffy the joys of the highway brings joy to both us, and our quadruped friends. but it does sometimes pose its own set of difficulties. In our case, where to put Ithmah’s–the fur-balled feline’s–sand box.

Our traveling research rig is presently a truck camper–a far cry from the space afforded by our fulltiming fifth wheel. The idea of having a litter box underfoot in those limited few square feet of floor space was just unthinkable. There was, however, a plethora of space available outside the camper–yet still enclosed by the truck bed, in the wheel well area of the truck. The camper manufacturer had made that space available by putting access doors through the sidewall at floor level, but leaving one of those doors open to allow Ithmah in and out only stirred visions of blasts of hot or cold air, seasonally dependent. Tripping over that open portal–espcially during dark night trips to our own ’sand box’ didn’t sit well either.

The solution was waiting at the big box builder center: A small “pet door,” installed in the already existing access door would allow our friend’s access to her powder room, while the clear flap on the pet door would (generally) keep the outside and inside temperatures segregated.

What to do when the truck and the camper were separated? We’ve had some experience in this field–our fifth wheel is equipped with a pet door just under the dinette table; outside that pet portal lies another litter box–but this one, cleverly assigned to our “Kitty Kondo.” The condo is a dismantle able (to lay flat for transport) secure “Arizona Room” with screened walls and rain-shedding roof, almost sized correctly. Actually, the condo was designed for Ithmah’s predecessor who weighed in at a whopping 6 pounds wet weight; Ithmah tips the scales at 17 pounds, so the condo could stand to be a bit bigger. For our “research vessel” we had another, more appropriately sized condo constructed to cling to the side of the camper “box.”

How can this work for you? It may be a matter of stretching your imagination out a little bit. Does your motorhome or trailer have “basement storage” that shares a common wall? Imagine a pet door allowing your feline friend to access his bathroom 24-hours a day without assistance. Or perhaps you travel with a more independent canine companion. Where it’s safe and neighborly to do so, an appropriately placed “doggy door” could allow your hound access to the great outdoors.

Adding a pet door to an existing door is fairly straight-forward, although you may need to add a little thickening to the framing to account for a pet door design. We (if you’ll pardon the pun) had to “furr” out the door frame with some 1 x 2, but that was all that was required. When putting the door through an existing wall, be careful with internals like plumbing and electrical lines.