What is door-dashing? It’s when your pet, without your permission, dashes through an open door to the outside . . . which could be your front yard or the hallway of your apartment building. Once your pet is outside, he is likely to keep going—down the street or through more doors. You’ve lost control. Unless you’re very lucky, you may have also lost your pet.
Last week, I discussed how to prevent door-dashing through supervision and management, “air-locking” doors with access to the outside and creating barriers with baby gates for animals. This week, I’ll make a few suggestions on behaviors you can train to keep door-dashing from happening in the first place. (While it is possible to train cats to perform these behaviors, training dogs may be much easier.)
First, discuss with other family members what you prefer your pet to do instead of door-dashing. In most cases, instead of being hot on your heels, rushing to doors about to be opened, your pet should not approach the door, but instead stay some distance away.
Second, look at your situation to determine exactly where you’d like your pet to be while the door is being opened. This decision depends entirely on the set-up of your home around your front (or back or side) door. If possible, choose a spot that is out of the flow of traffic—a place where other family members have room to pass without needing to step over or around the pet.
Third, decide how to use that spot to help your pet learn where he or she should be when the door to the outside is being used.
For a dog, you can place an appropriately sized crate in that spot to serve as the dog’s “station” during door use. Another option, especially if space is limited, is a dog bed, pad, or small rug, placed within sight of the outside door. (Choose one that will hold its position on the floor as the dog moves around on it.)
For a cat, consider using a cat tree, making its highest level the cat’s “station” during door use—a position that might well be considered “safe” by the cat.
With masking tape or glow tape, you can also create a visible line on the floor behind which the pet should wait while the outside door is used. Changes in substrate provide another obvious “line” behind which a pet should stay—for example, where the carpet meets the tile in your foyer. As you start to train, help your pet learn where these “lines” are by setting up additional barriers—use the panels of an exercise pen or stack household items along the “line” so your pet must step over or around the barrier to get to the outside door.
Ideally, whatever “station” you create should be easily perceived by the pet and be a spot where he or she feels comfortable and safe. As training progresses, you can remove the stacked items one by one, or gradually reduce the length of the tape marker. Your pet won’t need the additional hints forever.
I suggest opting for the pad or open crate for one particular reason: these “stations” can be used anywhere. That’s especially important if you move house, travel, or visit friends and family with your pet. With a portable station, you are training behaviors that can be transferred to and used in a variety of situations instead of just one. Additional training may be required for new locations, but your pet will know the basics.
Once you know where you want your pet to be during the use of the outside door, set up that situation physically and try it without the pet as a test run.
- Ask a family member to “be the dog,” or even use a stuffed animal to stand in for the pet.
- Act out what will happen when someone goes to the outside door.
- Make sure that the station you’ve chosen is as “safe” as it can be—out of the normal traffic pattern for humans, so the pet runs no risk of being stepped on or spooked.
Familiarize the pet with the station you’ve decided to use. That’s easy enough if the pet already uses a crate and likes it; not so easy if the pet has never seen or been in a crate. Take all the time you need to make absolutely sure that going into the crate is a good experience for the pet. Don’t start training the “station” behavior until the pet willingly and happily enters the crate on cue.
Have you decided to use a dog bed, pad, or small rug instead of a crate for a station? If it’s new to the pet, give him or her lots of time to acclimate to it. Place it on the floor in a variety of locations throughout your home, making sure your pet is unafraid of it. (Yes, pets are often afraid of unfamiliar objects, even ones they may later learn to like.) Reward your pet for interest—walking nearby, sniffing, stepping on it—with quiet praise and treats. Throw the treats onto the bed or rug so that the pet begins to pair the idea of the bed with the idea of eating treats and being praised.
Don’t use a cue or “command” yet for the action of going to the station. Introduce the “name” of the station slowly and subtly, as part of your verbal praise. For example, when the pet is standing on the rug, you might quietly say, “Good rug, Buddy, good, good rug!” Again, you are pairing the rug with the praise and the treats, encouraging your pet to think of it as safe.
Don’t discourage your pet from “offering” the behavior of running into the crate or diving onto the rug even when you are not, at the moment, training for that behavior! Offering the behavior is a good sign, and it shouldn’t be ignored at this stage in the process.
Let’s say you’re rinsing dishes at the sink when your pet enters the kitchen, notices the rug on the floor, and dives onto it, looking imploringly at you for approval. Approve! Give quiet praise and, if you have treats in your pocket or on the counter, toss treats to the animal while he or she is still on the pad. “Good rug, Buddy, good rug!”
(Should the pet’s offering of this behavior—assuming the position in the crate or on the pad—interrupt your normal course of activities, don’t make the mistake of ignoring it or, worse, reprimanding him for it. Don’t even look impatient! What’s easier and more productive? Remove the crate or pad except when you are training. Out of sight, out of mind.)
Have you decided to use the change of substrate as the line beyond which the pet is not supposed to go? Is his “station” on the carpeted side of the foyer, just where it changes into tile? Make that line as clear as possible when you first start training this behavior—use tape or a temporary barrier—and refresh your pet’s familiarity with the “Wait” cue at that spot. If you haven’t yet introduced the “Wait” behavior, you’ll need to start from scratch . . . but it is worth the effort. You’re creating a firm foundation for the anti–door-dashing training.
Teaching a pet to go to its station and Wait there until released is much easier if you first create in the pet’s mind a connection between a sound (marker) and the expectation of a reward. That sound can be verbal—”Yes!”—or it can be from a device like a clicker.
I suggest you opt for the clicker. That way, the sound is always exactly the same, making this part of the training far less confusing to the animal than it might otherwise be. A voice marker usually offers too much variety of sound, causing the animal to have to interpret what he’s heard. The never-varying sound of the clicker makes the message to the animal much clearer and easier to comprehend. You can certainly try using your voice, but I think you’ll discover that you’re not able to be completely consistent in speaking that verbal marker. That can certainly cause training to go more slowly for your pet.
Next week, I’ll outline the steps of training your pet to “go to station” using a sound marker. This is the foundation of the behavior that offers a positive alternative to door-dashing.
In the meantime, take the opportunity to search online for information and videos about clicker training and how it works so you’re familiar with the process. You even have a chance to purchase a few clickers—always have more than one on hand; they so easily get misplaced—and to prepare some high-value treats before then!
