The Dog Tripper

It turns out that although I know a fair amount of information about different dog training methods, and I even did agility with one of the resident blood donor dogs during vet school (the dog did well, I kept crashing into things...), my own dogs have come to me pretty much trained.

I did teach (deaf) Molly the hand signal for sit, and I taught (blind) Lucy the command "step-down" so she would go carefully down stairs and not just launch herself wildly into the air after the first step. But I've never had to do more than that.

Until now.

Molly Speedbump only has one bad habit. Every time I go into a room and close the door, she will lie down with her back against the door and block the entryway so I trip over her on my way out.

Now, I could put down spike strips (or some humane equivalent) to make lying there less appealing, but then I wouldn't be able to walk around in bare feet. So what I've been doing instead of just stepping over her is nudging her with my foot until she heaves herself off the floor.

Lately she's been leaving a roughly twelve inch gap between her rear end and the side of the door, which is just enough space to get by without tripping over her as long as I don't step on her tail.

I thought we were making progress, but it's actually worse, because when she sees me, she wags her tail, and since she is lying on her side, her tail wags perpendicularly to the floor. Then she goes from being a speedbump to being the extra-difficult last hole in miniature golf, where you have to time it just right or the windmill knocks your ball to the side.

So... yeah. Maybe we can work on that...