[Dailydrool] Dog Doors

[Julie Canny]

When we built our "dream" house, a dog door was in the agreement with the
builder.  We had one installed in the laundry room door to the screen porch
and a screen dog door from the screen porch to the dog ramp (also in our
agreement).  The laundry is right next to the master bedroom (or should I
say slave bedroom that the dogs let us sleep in), so quite convenient.  If
you can picture a 6 panel door, the first carpenter put the dog door just
above the bottom section.  There is a single step down to the screen porch.
 Hmmmmm let's see, 6" step, 9" up for dog door = 15".  Measure dogs: short
and old one is 14" to the shoulder.  Significant agility is required for
basset to jump up and through the dog door.  Why do that when the slaves
will open the door for you.  So for a year we had a door that was meant for
a greyhound, not a basset.  They learned very quickly to go out the screen
door, but we still had to get up to let them out to the screen porch.  So...
we bought a wood door, got another carpenter (one that looked at the dogs!)
and he put the door just about an inch from the bottom and built a step
outside.  It took 3 months for all 3 to finally figure it out.  One would go
in and out easily.  One would only go out and not come in.  The third would
only come in and not go out.  Repeated treats and reinforcement worked at
basset "lightening" speed.  Finally - all 3 use both dog doors.  If we're
running late, I don't worry about carpets.  In the middle of the night you
hear "click, click, click...... woomph" and someone has let him/herself out.
 Both of us are constantly saying "I love the dog door".
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.dailydrool.org/pipermail/dailydrool-dailydrool.org/attachments/20110407/70cbe3a1/attachment-0002.htm>