When I fostered in the summer time, I had a small folding kennel just inside the open patio door so the dogs could come and go as they pleased and I didn’t really worry about accidents in the house. Once it got cold, when the last batch was here, they would stand at the door, aware of the cold air outside, and not move. So I bought pee pads, and they used a lot of them.
That led me to start thinking about outdoor options: insulated dog house, heated dog house, straw bale dog house (which is quite warm). Then one day at the dog park, the day after I got this current pair, a friend told me about patio door inserts that have doggie doors in them, available at Home Depot. I picked one up on the way home and had it installed in a few minutes. Once the weather strip is applied, all you have to do is close the patio door against it. But, I wondered, how long would it take to teach the dogs to use it?
First I showed the puppies how it worked, holding the flap up and guiding them through, then going outside and guiding them back. I figured it would be a process that took a few days, getting them used to understand that that’s how we go in and out now. But not five minutes later, the pups let themselves out, ran around for a while, then let themselves back in. They did that about every ten minutes and seemed genuinely fascinated by the door flap, almost as if it were a toy, while my permanent dogs really weren’t quite sure what to do with it. No matter, though, it was for the foster pups, to eventually wean them off the pee pads. But they did that themselves immediately. I noticed that after every sleep period, they would walk right to the dog door and go outside to pee.
The next morning I heard them playing outside before the sun was up, and they went in and out many times. When I checked on their sleeping area, the pee pads were unused, and they stayed unused for the rest of the day. As a risky experiment, I gave them access to the whole room that night, and they slept on the rug by the sofa. The following morning I checked the room and to my amazement, the intelligent little foster pups had used the dog door every time they had to go out. Not a spot on the floor anywhere.
Now they act like the door isn’t even there, running in and out at full speed when a chase is on. And today, two weeks after the door installation and with full access to the room, they have only used a pee pad once during the night. Foster life is good.
Bozeman Foster Dogs 