Doggy door in french door

Hi All,
I searched the forum far and wide but there is hardly anything on doggy doors.... We are coming to the tail end of our reno project, so it's now time to think about the back door.

We are keeping the Crimsafe security mesh door but are installing a new back door as its mate. The screen door has a doggy door with a hard flap. The new door will be a single French door = 2 columns of 5 glass panes. We will most likely need to remove the four bottom panes as one might be too little for the resident Golden Retriever to fit through plus that one pane is also not going to quite line up with the opening in the screen door. We are awaiting some advice from a carpenter but thought maybe there are other ideas out there too.

The current thinking is to replace the hard flap of the screen door with a soft flap. Take the four panes out and replace with a doggy door of similar style (Petway) but with a hard flap plus fill in glass/timber to make up the size. That way in warm weather we leave the French door open and just use the screen door and in cold weather the soft flap on the screen door will somehow be held up and we rely on the hard flap of the glass door to keep most of the cold out.

Has anyone ever made up their own doggy door, i.e. not gone for a DIY kit? Any other thoughts are most welcome too!


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