How did you train your dog to use a doggy door?
farmergirl100904 asked:
We just bought installed a doggy door for our two dogs. Both are over 2 years old, so this will be a new thing for them!! How did you train your dog to use a doggy door?
We just bought installed a doggy door for our two dogs. Both are over 2 years old, so this will be a new thing for them!! How did you train your dog to use a doggy door?
Have one person outside and one inside and encourage them to go through rewarding them when they do it. Worked for my dog and he was over 2 also. I did have to give him a push to get him going the first couple times then it was fine.
OK here is what you do. First have someone go outside and you stay inside. Push the dogs through the door, usually they are afraid because they don’t realize they can go through it, this lets them see that they can. Do that a couple of times so they understand. Next have both people inside and the dogs outside and call them in, you may need treats for this. Also, if they won’t come in stick your hand through the door so they see the opening. The important thing is to show them that they can go through it. I trained my chihuahua to do this and just trained my new pug to do it as well.
I pushed her in and out a lot of times and she watched the cats go in and out. You can try to pin up the door so it is always open until he/she gets the hang of it. Try treats on the other side too.
Sometimes, just encouraging the dog isn’t enough. Some dogs belive the door is a wall, or are afraid of it. Tape it securely in the open position. Or fasten it in some other manner, just make sure it won’t fall on your dogs when they go through. Once they go through it often, lower it about a quarter of the way. If this scares them at first, put a treat on the other side. Then lower it completely. If they don’t go through and treats don’t work, just show them it opens when they want to get through. this, combined with what you did before, will get most dogs to use the door.
almost broke my back crawling through so they would follow me!! after pushing them,going in and out i finally just went through calling the dogs at the same time. they thought this was great fun as they had my socks in their mouths. but it worked.