How to Teach Your Dog to Ask to Go Out

Video Transcript

"If you'd like to teach your dog how to ask to go outside, one of the things you need to do is be prepared to be at a door and to ask your dog to do something and then reward instead of a treat for example would be to go through the door. Hopefully your dog enjoys going outside and you have a safe fenced in location outside of the door. So you've already set your dog up to learn to go outside, to prefer to go outside to go to the bathroom and now you're going to stand at the door and you're going to ask them for a behavior that will lead to letting them through the door. So for example, a bark is a common thing that you would want your dog to do. So here you are at the door and you ask your dog to speak because you've taught your dog how to bark on command, Lady speak. Good girl, OK. Yay. Come back here, good girl. Speak. OK, good girl, go ahead, yay, good girl. Speak, good girl, OK, come, good girl, yay, good girl. Another common thing to do is to hang a bell from the door, teach your dog to touch the bell to ring the bell and that is your queue to let them out and that's their reward is getting a chance to go outside. Another really clever idea I had somebody think up one time was to buy one of those remote doorbells that are wireless and you have the doorbell and you put the doorbell down low and you teach your dog to target it with their foot and then when the doorbell rings, you allow them to go outside. Now remember its important to know what motivates your dog. If your dog isn't motivated by going outside, they don't particularly enjoy it, then you might want to have a favorite person on the other side of the door so its exciting to go through to that person, you might want to toss a treat through the door so going through the door and getting the treat is a motivating thing or a toy or you might walk through the door yourself. But remember always to know what motivates your dog."