Train Your Dog To Use A Doggy Door

Doggy doors can be handy additions to life with dogs. They allow free access to outdoors when needed especially if your dog is home alone.

It is, however, worthwhile considering that sometimes it is more effective to manage your dog’s movements particularly for behavioural reasons. For example, if your dog lets themselves outside to practice unwanted or dangerous behaviours such as chasing possums. Make sure you get a lock function on your doggy door so you can restrict movement when needed.

Training tips for using a doggy door

If you decide to install a doggy door, here are our tips for teaching your dog to use it safely and carefully:

1. Remove the door flap or tape it back so there is no chance it can accidentally
   make a noise or move while in the training phase.
2. Find what motivates your dog (food or toys) and if you can, have one person on one side of the door and yourself on the other side.
3. Play ‘in and out games’ – see if you can toss a treat for your dog to follow back and forth through the door opening. Once your dog is doing this well, try shaping.
4. Shaping means rewarding any behaviour your dog does that is closer to the end behaviour of moving back and forth through the door, without prompting or luring them.
   a) Your dog steps towards the opening (mark and reward)
   b) Your dog touches the opening with their nose or paw (mark and reward)
   c) Your dog puts any part of their nose at or across the threshold (mark and reward)
   d) Increase criteria until you are only rewarding for the nose going through the opening.
   e) You may decide at this point that your dog requires more encouragement to get them over that last hurdle and use a lure to get your dog to step through.
5. The aim is to get your dog to go in and out without luring.
6. Make sure your dog is comfortable going back and forth through the open door before moving to the next step.
7. Re attach or allow the door to be in place as normal.
8. Hold the door open at first and make sure it doesn’t accidentally fall on your dog’s back. This can startle your dog and put them all the way back to step 3.
9. Gradually allow the door to be a bit more closed each time your dog goes through, so they can feel the door touching their back as they move through the door.
10. At this point you can encourage your dog to push the door with their nose a little more each time.
11. Repeat steps 4-6 until your dog is moving through the door on their own.

Troubleshooting:

My dog doesn’t want to go near the door

In this case we would mark and treat any movement towards the door (shaping) and
reset by tossing a treat away from the door. This encourages the dog to come and
investigate again. Gradually build up confidence with approaching the door first, then
investigating, then eventually interacting with the door.

My dog is sensitive to the door touching his back

You can create a ‘soft door’ by using a towel or piece of plastic. Attach this to the door and start by holding it up, then gradually allow the softer material to touch your dog’s back until they are pushing through the door. Once your dog has the confidence with this, you can attach the normal door and begin the process again.

Following another dog

Having another dog that is comfortable to go through the door can help as the dog you are teaching may follow.

Reminder

All dogs will be different with how long you spend on each step. Depending on how the
dog goes, you may decide to play in and out games first or shaping first. If you have a
dog that is reluctant to approach the door, then shaping would be the best place to start.
Some dogs can be particularly sensitive to things touching their backs so you may need
to spend more time using a soft door at the start.

Happy training!