puppies and dog flaps

[Livened]

Hi all - my other half is really opposed to a dog flap for security reasons, but I've heard they can be brilliant.

Has anyone got any experience of installing one and how successful they are with puppies of 12 weeks and older?

Can anyone recommend any specific makes for the cocker breed?  What size should we get for Bella?

I work from home so Bella is never left for more than 2hours at the most, but I'm keen to give her a bit more freedom as I'm sure if she could she'd open the back door to go out for toilet she would (already house trained at 12 weeks and we're very proud!).

Any pros/cons would be really helpful - thanks.
 

[Jan/Billy]

I have a medium dog flap in my back door and it's an absolute godsend!  They are easy to install, it's just getting the hole in the door that may be tricky 


Billy started using his straight away at 8 weeks old. I had to coax him with a treat at first but once he got the hang of it he loved it 

[Biker3]

I would'nt be without a dog flap in the back door - the girls tend to use it even if the patio door is open 
I originally had a medium Staywell flap which was a fine size for Kaiya my cocker but as Trinity my collie got bigger, she was struggling to squeeze herself through it so we installed the large size and all the girls have no problem using it. It did'nt take them long to get the hang of it either.
The staywell comes with a template so you can work out how big of a hole you need to cut and we had no problem installing it.
Shop around first though - our local pet shop which is expensive at the best of times, was 40 quid more expensive than Argos 

[coralee]

A dog flap was one of my Mum's Christmas presents from me last year! Her Tasha had become a "pacer" through the night - and after the third month of Tash keeping Mum awake every single night pacing, we put in a dog flap - and it quite literally saved my Mum's sanity!! She has the medium sized staywell flap as Biker3 had. If I could trust my postman to close my garden gate, I'd most definately get one 

[Becky and Wilson]

We had a dog flap installed because the girls kept squeezing their way through our cat flap!  I thought one of them would end up getting stuck while we were out at work so decided to get a proper dog flap instead!  We went for the staywell medium and it's the metal one with a flexible plastic door (one of our cats kept breaking the rigid door cat flap variety so I thought the flexible would last longer!

I don't think the medium would be big enough for a burglar to get in so I'm sure it would be fine safety wise.  Plus the one I've got has a metal shutter to close it off.  You can always put that down if you're going out with the dog!