Teaching Your Dog to Use a Dog Door

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Teaching your dog how to use a doggie door is not necessarily an easy process as I’ve learned over the past few weeks! It can take as little as a few tries up to months before the dog figures it out! Patience is the key, as you pushing your dog too quickly can lead to fearing the door instead of seeing it as something fun! One thing you definitely do not want to do is force them through it.

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The Dream

You think to yourself (as I did), a doggie door sounds like a dream! Letting my dogs in and out what feels like hundreds (billions…) of times a day is tiring. Particularly in the winter…and then Benson. Oh Benson. He LOVES banging on the door to go out, then banging on it repeatedly when outside…Only for me to open the door and have him look at me blankly and stand there…

I think he is trying to see if anyone wants to go out and join him! I am also worried that the big brute will end up breaking the glass on the sliding door one day…

In and Out…And Back In and Out

In the winter the dogs, being Bernese Mountain dogs, lovers of snow and cold, want to go out constantly. I open that door so much that my heating bill makes me wince upon showing up in my inbox.

Thinking longingly of the freedom that a dog door would provide to my pets (and myself! Maybe I could actually finish a movie without having to get up several times!!!) I turned to the internet.

There are no shortage of options out there…You can find about a billion results for pet doors with the flaps, in a multitude of sizes and colors.

My line of thought was that the neighbourhood raccoons and rats would also have no trouble figuring out how to use a door with a flap so I kept looking. There has to be a better solution!

Plexidor

When I came across Plexidor I was impressed with their offering. Their doors are a saloon style door that opens in both directions. It can be installed in doors, walls and even into glass! It comes in several sizes (including one large enough for my beasts!) They also have an electronic option! The frames are heavy duty aluminum, the panels are shatterproof and each panel has weather stripping. This was it. This was the door for me!

Finding a contractor to install the door was a feat in itself! I thought I wanted it put into my sliding glass door that leads out onto the deck and I FINALLY found someone who could do it! When he came in to take a look and give me a quote, he recommended I actually get it put in on the side door. I put in my order!

Time passed. Still no door. With Covid timing on these things can vary dramatically. I cursed every time I heard that bang on the door! My daughter would say “Mom when is that door coming?!?” as she also let them in and out many, many times during the day. Benson seems to have a bit of a witching hour after supper when it is NONSTOP.

It’s Here!

Finally the day came when the door was going in! I was SO excited! Freedom! Although I was getting a good number of steps in…

After waiting for so long, I was ready to tackle the training! Little did I know…Some dogs I am sure get the hang of it very quickly when they realize they can go in and out to their heart’s content. NOT MINE!

My daughter and I crawled through that door multiple times as soon as the silicon around it was dry. The dogs just looked at it blankly, just having NO idea what to do with it! One of us was on either side holding the door and coaxing them in and out with treats. Very hesitantly they finally, slowly, made their way through.

Let The Training Begin!

As they started to get more comfortable with the idea of being able to go in and out I started to let the door gently close on them so they would get used to the sensation of it. The one thing you do NOT want to do is have them get scared of it and never go near it again!

Benson is getting really good at going through if I toss treats out first and hold it open. I have had limited success so far with leaving one flap closed and getting him to push through. Some days he will do it, some days he won’t.

Grace is another story altogether! I have mentioned it in other posts, but it is worth repeating that she is the most STUBBORN dog. She would come to the door sometimes when I was working with Benson just to get treats but refused to go through. She seems to be figuring out the flaps a little better than Benson though as she has gone through a few times completely on her own. But often she will just sit at the glass door glaring at me, not even coming for the treats…

Finally Getting Some Results!

One of the times going through on her own was when my daughter and her friend went into the backyard from the gate. All of a sudden she was just out! Another time she went through was when we were having a playful tickle match just on the other side and then a piggy back ride! For whatever reason Grace can’t STAND it when I give piggyback rides! She gets really worked up if we just hug sometimes even…Silly girl.

Having to get up to let the dogs in and out of the dog door every time really defeated the purpose of actually getting that door! I am ready to try with a new tactic though. I will be armed with hopefully irresistible hot dogs! We will pick a time every day to spend 10-15 minutes with them and be diligent. It has been three weeks and this has not been the success story I had hoped! But I am determined…they WILL use that door!!!!

Stay tuned…

Update

May 26th update!!! Well, hot dogs really didn’t do the trick where the dog door was concerned…if anything all it did was give the dogs diarrhea!! Ew. That was the end of THAT trick.

However, I have come across something that is starting to work it seems! I figured out how to prop those doors open using some twigs from the yard! Grace tries to chew them off…BUT I have noticed with the doors open that they are actually using them to go in and out!!!

My daughter and I are also using that door when going in and out as the idea is to get the dogs to associate outside with that door instead of the sliding door…I figure I will leave it open for them during the day for a while and gradually move towards full time use when they are closed! It isn’t much but I’ll take it! And in the meantime buy a flyswatter…