Hole in floor?

[darmahsd]

What looks like a simple problem that even Ford solved in the past, is included, no charge, on my '05 XLT. My '97 XLT came with these swing down flaps that bridged the gap when you folded down the middle seat and conveniently snapped back into the seatbacks when they are upright. Amazingly, my '05 doesn't have these. I was in a hurry last night to pick up my son and brought my dog along who loves to stick his head out the windows. Normally, I'd stuff some junk, blankets or whatnot into the gaps and put my moving quilt over that for the dog but last night I didn't and the dog got caught in it. Could have broken something and my bad for being negligent. But really, I'm tired of trying to figure what to stuff down there all the time and can't believe I have a problem like this in such an expensive vehicle when it didn't exist in their first XLT. Like it wasn't even an Eddie Bauer. Are there any factory ones available? Did they just forget to put something that obvious in, or am I missing something here, maybe the way I'm folding down the seats. Even if I could get gray carpeted junkyard ones from a first generation, they were 60/40 and not the middle seat like my '05.
Sorry for the long winded whine, but it's frustrating.

 

[tallsville]

id say you could get a piece of wood cut that could stay behind seats when up and that you could put down across gap when seats are down.

 

[darmahsd]

'Gonna have to make panels like on my '97. Put gray carpet on them and use a commercial grade adhesive Velcro that just happens to be close to the same gray as my interior, instead of messing with hinges and drilling holes. One position when middle seats are down, and like tallsville suggests, Velcro in a second position behind each of the three middle seatbacks when they are upright.

Thanks