Okay, that title is a bit misleading – this is more like “teaching doors to close behind cats and dogs.” :-)

Do you have an animal in your house that knows how to bang open a door from one room to the next? If you are trying to keep the air-conditioning in or cold drafts out it’s annoying when they barge through and leave the door swinging wide open (think of showering in a steamy bathroom in winter, when BAMM! there’s a cat wanting your attention followed by a blast of cold air…).

Here’s a simple trick to mitigate that problem:

– You need a bungee cord about 18-24 inches long (unstretched) and either a small screw eye or something secure on the wall in the vicinity of the doorknob.

– Standing on the side of the door such that it opens towards you, loop one end of the bungee cord around the doorknob and use the hooked end to make a loop around the knob.

– Stretch out the bungee cord loosely and either hook the other end around some suitable object on the wall or close to it (e.g., a wire shelf, a coat hook, etc – anything that will not pull out/move when the cord is stretched a bit) or else screw that screw eye into the door frame.

Now when the cat/dog pushes the door open from the other side they can get in with minimal effort, and the stretched bungee cord will gently pull the door shut behind them.

[Note: this is not optimal if your cat/dog then immediately wants to go out the door again, unless they are also good at “pull”!]