Arnold is a pug who cannot be trusted to have the run of the house. Just when he seems to have turned the housebreaking corner, he’ll make a mistake on a freshly shampooed carpet and his owner will despair that he’ll ever catch on. Or, he will absentmindedly chew a chair leg or munch on the cable bill, and back he’ll go into kitchen confinement.
To keep Arnold from having access to the rest of the house, Arnold’s owner installed gates in nearly every doorway and hallway. There is a gate at the bottom of the staircase to the 2nd floor, and a gate at the top of the stairs to the basement.
Arnold is two years old, and his family has been living surrounded by gates for his entire life. At this point, they don’t think twice about stepping over the gates, yet curiously, they frequently leave the gates ajar. And Arnold has learned that he can nudge a gate with his nose and paw, and be rewarded with freedom, though he usually does nothing more inocuous than curling up on the sofa for a snooze.
Yes, gates are fine for keeping your home safe. But did you know that dogs CAN learn to respect borders?
If a gate is what is preventing the dog from entering a forbidden room, does the dog really understand that?
I’ve walked into many a household where the dogs are frantically barking and leaping on the gate that stops them from running into the hallway to answer the door. If that barrier should be removed, the dogs make a beeline for the visitor. The gate didn’t teach them anything, it just managed them temporarily.
Let’s replace the word GATE for the word STAY.
Everywhere you have a gate, you have a created a border. Teach your dog to STAY at the psychological border, and you will no longer need a physical one.
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