How to Train a Dog to Use a Doggie Door

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Ty Brown with dogbehvioronline.com. I'm here in Riverton, Utah today teaching you how to train a dog. The topic of today's discussion is teaching your dog how to use a doggie door. Now a lot of dogs are a little bit threatened by the concept of a doggy door because on first glance, it looks like just another part of the wall, and so to teach your dog to run into that part of the wall, and go through, can be a little bit daunting, and so what you want to do is set yourself up and set your dog up for success. In the beginning stages have your dog wear a leash, approach the door, and give him a command such as, "Go through" or "Go potty" or some other command like that so that the dog is cued to do something. Once you've said that, use the leash to impel him through the door. If he doesn't want to go,just continue helping him. If he really doesn't want to go, get a partner on the side of that door to help you. Pull the leash through and have the partner kind of give a couple tugs so that the dog comes through. Once he makes it through to the other side, at that point it's very critical that you really make him feel good about his victory. Give him a treat, give him some praise, help him feel really good that he made his way through the door. Now if you do this with a lot of repetition, the dog is soon going to learn, oh that doggie door isn't so fearful,there's nothing wrong with that, and he's going to go through on his own. But until you get him to that point, you've got to do a lot of helping and a lot of showing so that the dog can make the decision on his own, and that's how you train a dog how to use the doggie door."