The wiregauze roll-door

July 2001

It is the height of summer, the sun is shining brightly in a clear blue sky. Tootsie and Meis feel quite at home with us and our Guusje is fine. All three get along well. Little rows as in the beginning when Toots and Meis had just arrived don't happen anymore, they have all found their place at our home. Around the eating-throughs they're good-natured, too.

They cheerfully run along the house playing and when Guusje's fed up she just goes outside to find a nice and shady spot in the garden.

Tootsie and Meis are not allowed to go outside, that's not just because they're pedigree cats but even more because they haven't been sterilized yet and really, three cats are enough for Inge and me.
When the weather's so nice one likes to throw open some doors and windows, like the garden door. This poses a small problem when one cat may go outside and the other two may not, how to solve this?
Inge had a bright idea, a wiregauze roll-door.

By means of this simple and effective utensil the flying insect population stays outside and the cat population inside.
Alas, if only it were so simple. Our garden door has no threshold and to make the wiregauze roll-door function properly there need to be two guide-rails which must be installed at the upper- and underside. The wiregauze door's provider, our local hardware store, told us that the under guide-rail was not necessary, he had done without himself at his home. Every intelligent cat, and we have three of those, can find out that if you make yourself flat and with your head forward you can simply crawl underneath the wiregauze roll-door. So this had to be made impossible, by means of a plank of about 15 cm high that had to be placed along the entire width in the door's rabbet. It's not possible anymore for a cat to leave the house via the garden door.

Next day I'm peacefully reading in the living-room, for why should one do that unpeacefully. I had let Guusje go outside and carefully closed the wiregauze roll-door with the plank.
After an hour or so Guusje cheerfully enters the room. "Hi Guus", I call and at the same moment get a start. "Heavens, haven't I closed the wiregauze roll-door properly then" and hurry to the garden-door.
But the wiregauze roll-door with it's plank is still closed the way I did it an hour ago. Guusje had quickly discovered that if you crawl between the plank and the wiregauze roll-door you can enter the house quite easily without opening the wiregauze roll-door.
After a close examination by Guusje and myself it turns out to be possible to come in from outside, but luckily for me not the other way round.
Yes, Guusje, I'm glad to have such intelligent cats.