Howdy pardners

Am reading a cowboy book for a bit of escapism.

Set in Texas in the 1870s (of course), our hero rode up to a farm house that had a "dogtrot". In the next sentence the author mentions a porch so my thoughts that a dogtrot was a porch were dashed.

What's a dogtrot? Why is it called a dogtrot? What would us Auszies call it? Do houses still have them?

(Spose I could google this - but where's the fun in that!)

Be seein y'all. Happy trails.

Doc Stales

Dear stales: A book I used to read to my kids told about a type of house popular in rural south US before electricity became available for air conditioning. The floorplan of the house had three sections lengthwise. The center section had no wall on ends, so any breeze could blow through, making the coolest part of the house, particularly on hot nights.
But the family dogs could trot through, so it was jocularly called the dog trot.

Here's URl to a picture of one:Be patient, it's slow loading
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ourhistory/Autry/PicPage6.html

Thanx wwh

In Oz we'd call it a breezeway or central corridor in a real estate advert. But I've never seen one without a door at both ends; usually of flywire. Inevitably there's a front verandah and back porch as well to shade the windows. Very common style of construction up until the 1950s or 60s in Australia. Matter of fact my house (1936) has one.

Wonder why they didn't put a door on them?

stales

flywire? would that be what I call screen?

Dear stales: Both insect screens and doors required tools, hardware, and skills not available to rural poor.

Hey, stales! [blowing kiss e] Got yer spurs on?
What are cowboys in Australia called?

Jackeroos.

Paniolos, in Hawaii.

A breezeway in Canada

Related to pannier(s)?

I might have introduced some confusion into the thread. I was giving the Hawaiian word for cowboy. As it turns out, the word "paniolo" has an interesting history and derivation.
In 1838, at the request of Kamehameha III, Spanish-Mexican vaqueros came from California to teach Hawaiians how to manage the wild herds. The vaqueros became "paniolo," a word derived from "espanol" or "Spanish." The name was also given to the new Hawaiian cowboys.

What are cowboys in Australia called?

Prince Harry!

You can find lots of images of dogtrots (or just about anything else) by going to http://www.google.com and searching for images rather than just searching the web. (Look for the tabs at the top that allow you select web, images, groups, directory or news.) Here are results of a google image search (or a gis in internet shorthand) http://images.google.com/images?q=dogtrot&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en