Give Your Dog A Doorbell

A World O' Words article

Dog Housetraining: Give Your Dog A Doorbell

by Joyce Harmon

Housebreaking is this most critical training issue in any pet dog's life. Failure at this training is a commonly cited reason for owners to give up their dog. Other dogs become outdoor dogs due to their owners' inability to housbreak them. Whole books have been written about about how to housebreak your dog.

Most of these books, however, concentrate on only one of the two comprehension issues involved in a successful housetraining. They deal almost exclusively with getting your dog to comprehend that she is supposed to do all her elimination outside and not in the house.

But what about the other comprehension issue, the one the human is supposed to learn?

How does the owner learn to recognize when the dog needs to go?

This comprehension issue is handled on a very hit or miss fashion, and most dog-and-owner teams muddle through and eventually settle on a solution. The dog develops a characteristic behavior and the owner learns to recognize it.

There's only one problem with this. The dog decides what the signal is. And sometimes the signal is destructive or annoying. Scratching on the front door. Running and barking. Jumping at the owner.

Sometimes, the signal looks a lot like other demands for attention, and the owner might believe the dog just wants to be petted when the poor dog is saying, "Ohpleaseohplease, I need to GO!"

There's a solution to this, an amazingly simple one. YOU decide what the signal is, and you teach the signal to the dog.

Yes, give your dog a doorbell.

I wish I could say this was my bright idea, but the fact is I read about it in Ted Baer's excellent book "Communicating With Your Dog". But I'm here to TESTIFY - it works!

The idea is to rig up a bell contraption and hang it on the doorknob on the inside of the front door (or whichever door you use when you take out the dog) within the dog's reach. When the dog needs to go, she rings the bell by nosing or shouldering it.

I tried this years ago with my first dog, who at that time was - ahem - imperfectly housetrained. I got some sleigh bells, those round 'jingle bells' associated with Christmas, and sewed them on a length of heavy cloth which I hung on the doorknob. (Around Christmas time, you can find sleigh bells already sewn onto straps in the holiday decoration sections of your local department store or craft store.)

Then I taught Jenny what they were for. Every time we went out in the yard, I took her by the collar and moved her forward to nose the bells. I added some dog talk - "OUT? Does she want to go OUT? We're going OUT!"

She picked this up in less than a day!

Give this a try if you're housebreaking a puppy, or if you have an older dog whose signal for "I need to go!" is one you don't like. Get good-sized bells, several inches in diameter, to make sure you can hear them from the other side of the house. Have the dog nose the bells when you take her out, and use the Out word a lot.

When she starts ringing the bells on her own, take her out EVERY TIME she rings the bells, to reinforce her comprehension that if she wants to go outside, she needs to ring the bells.

Eventually, of course, your dog will start to 'abuse the system'. She'll ring when she really just wants to amble around outside. Never punish a dog for ringing the bells! But gradually cut back on how readily you take her out, and the two of you will develop an understanding. If you don't take her out right away and she didn't really need to go, she'll wander off and play or sleep. But if she really needs to go, you'll hear about it! If she's jingling frantically, don't just sit there - take her out!

The dog's doorbell. It's cheap, it's easy, and it solves what for many people is the major problem of dog ownership.

Buy the book, lots more great dog advice!

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