cant get my dog to bark at the door, help please!

[Akira]

I have a 9 month old Lad/Hound cross, and she will not bark at the door when she needs in or out. All she does is scratch either at the door or on the wall beside the door. We have a fairly new door thats now scratched up pretty good as well as new french doors that have takin abuse. We are about to put a brand new back door in, and dont want it to get marked up. We have tried asking her to go "pee" and then ask her to speak, praising her for a job well done, yet the door still gets scratched regularly. Can anyone help us out?

Thanks

[luckypenny]

Can you hang up bells on the handle of your door? We taught our dogs to use the bells when they want out (although our Penny-girl uses them every 10 minutes , in and out, in and out, in and....well, I'm sure you get it ).

As for coming back in, we don't leave them out unsupervised so I can always see them at the door when they want in. Either I'm out with them, or work in the kitchen so I can see them out the window.

Welcome to pets.ca Akira .

[hazelrunpack]

We had the same problem at our old house. Until you have her trained to redirect to the bell, you can protect your new door by attaching sheets of plexiglass or metal screens to it. It will leave a few small holes where you've screwed the sheets to the door, but once you remove the screens you can use wood putty to fill them.

[Akira]

Thanks, thats actually a really great idea. I also thought of attaching something to the door in the meantime, being a steal door though, I dont really want to drill into it.

Did you have any problems getting them to paw the bells as apposed to just scratching?

We let her roam the backyard by herself, so when she wants to come in she then scraches at the screen door, im not sure if bells would hold up outside in Canadian weather or if we'd even be able to hear them.

Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how we would get her to bark at the doors??

Thanks again for the bell idea.

[jiorji]

Originally Posted by Akira

We let her roam the backyard by herself, so when she wants to come in she then scraches at the screen door, im not sure if bells would hold up outside in Canadian weather or if we'd even be able to hear them.

why not?? they're metal
and LP uses bells and she's in canada too

can you get her to howl or something? cos then you can mimmick barking and get her to bark when she wants to come in/out and then maybe it'll stick that way

good luck

[monkey04]

LOL
I'm sorry, I have to laugh at the "Canadian Weather" comment Being formerly from the Beach, I MISS the warmness of southern Ontario! Come feel some of that fine, northern, prairie winds whipping around at -50 in good ol' northern Manitoba! The bells will hold up fine!

We had the same trouble with our dog (pound puppy) not barking or telling us when she had to go outside and trained her to use the bells. She just nudges it with her nose. We started by bringing her to the door, physically pushing her nose against the bells, gave her a treat, took her out. She caught on within 2 days (but I understand that is EXTREMELY fast...give it a week or so).
As for coming in, we were going to use the bells but it turned into not hearing them. So she'll either scratch to come back in if we're not paying attention (but in the winter, she's usually down, done her business, and back on the steps before we can turn around!).

Hope that helps with training!