Doggie Doors? Your experiences/opinions?

[navyman]

@Basenji_Boy:

I've seen dogs, climb and dig…..up and over or under. I never underestimate any animal. If something wants in bad enough, it's going to get in.IMO.

I absolutely agree with you. Most animals are naturally equipped to compromise less-than-maximum security level enclosures.

One of ours can open the door and let himself and the others out and does. It's not the doggie door I have a problem with, it's letting my B's outside when no ones home. Our's are in crates when we're not home.

That's really cute, but I'm sure it adds to your stress level! How do you manage to control the door-opening B from doing so?

Again if you know your B's and feel secure letting them run when you leave, it's a personal choice.

My feeling at this point in time is to have a doggie door, but not let it be used when no one's home. I could never feel at peace knowing that Murphy's Law lurks around the corner to spring upon us a situation for us to regret.

[tanza]

@Basenji_Boy:

I've seen dogs, climb and dig…..up and over or under. I never underestimate any animal. If something wants in bad enough, it's going to get in.IMO

One of ours can open the door and let himself and the others out and does. It's not the doggie door I have a problem with, it's letting my B's outside when no ones home. Our's are in crates when we're not home.

Again if you know your B's and feel secure letting them run when you leave, it's a personal choice.

Exactly… ours have always had the run of the yard and their dog room when we are not home... but we have a 12 ft privacy fence, house and yard set far back from the street, good size yard, padlocks on the gates.. and our neighbors are not right up against our fences either and our back neighbor is a nursing home....

[Basenji_Boy]

@navyman:

I absolutely agree with you. Most animals are naturally equipped to compromise less-than-maximum security level enclosures.

That's really cute, but I'm sure it adds to your stress level! How do you manage to control the door-opening B from doing so?

My feeling at this point in time is to have a doggie door, but not let it be used when no one's home. I could never feel at peace knowing that Murphy's Law lurks around the corner to spring upon us a situation for us to regret.

The B that opens the door hasn't figured out how to unlock it yet…..he did somehow accomplish it once. We ended up having two seperate fenced yards and lots of gates inside the house.
We have two pacs and like Andrea male/female issues. One pack has two spayed females and two in tact males........I just can't in my mind leave them unattended when we leave.
I just don't trust the two older Af's outside unattended when we leave( other dogs and prey animal issues), but we've left those two run the house when we go to the store or short type jaunts.

[navyman]

@Basenji_Boy:

The B that opens the door hasn't figured out how to unlock it yet…..he did somehow accomplish it once. We ended up having two seperate fenced yards and lots of gates inside the house.
We have two pacs and like Andrea male/female issues. One pack has two spayed females and two in tact males........I just can't in my mind leave them unattended when we leave.
I just don't trust the two older Af's outside unattended when we leave( other dogs and prey animal issues), but we've left those two run the house when we go to the store or short type jaunts.

As Andrea said, this isn't "normal"

I love my 3 B's, and we've dogsat/fostered on several occasions at the same time up to 9 B's. But, it's a LOT of work…multiple gates to set up...establishing ad hoc feeding arrangements (i.e., daughter take two B's into basement, I take our two into family room, wife places one in the mudroom, and two in the den)...crazy! Taking them for walks, dog park, etc. I don't know how you, Andrea, Kim and the other breeders manage the numbers at times! To me, 3 is a good number ...and more "normal"

[navyman]

@tanza:

Exactly… ours have always had the run of the yard and their dog room when we are not home... but we have a 12 ft privacy fence, house and yard set far back from the street, good size yard, padlocks on the gates.. and our neighbors are not right up against our fences either and our back neighbor is a nursing home....

A 12' privacy fence? What do those look like? That's huge!

[Quercus]

@navyman:

A 12' privacy fence? What do those look like? That's huge!

I was thinking the same thing!!! That is double the height of ours!!!

[Quercus]

@navyman:

As Andrea said, this isn't "normal"

I love my 3 B's, and we've dogsat/fostered on several occasions at the same time up to 9 B's. But, it's a LOT of work…multiple gates to set up...establishing ad hoc feeding arrangements (i.e., daughter take two B's into basement, I take our two into family room, wife places one in the mudroom, and two in the den)...crazy! Taking them for walks, dog park, etc. I don't know how you, Andrea, Kim and the other breeders manage the numbers at times! To me, 3 is a good number ...and more "normal"

No, we are definitely not normal And some days I wonder how I do it too…(and some days, why I do it!)

[navyman]

@Quercus:

No, we are definitely not normal And some days I wonder how I do it too…(and some days, why I do it!)

Our families on both sides have questioned our sanity in front of us and undoubtedly behind our backs for having basenjis (they've seen our snarky fosters at our house, and stereotyped the entire breed accordingly). I can only imagine what they'd think of yours and Basenji_Boy's situations

Bottom line is, we all know how special the Basenji is…if it's not a basenji, it's just a dog...the more, the merrier (sometimes!)

[tanza]

@Quercus:

I was thinking the same thing!!! That is double the height of ours!!!

Yup… but since we have no restriction on height.... works for us...:D It is solid to about 9ft and then we have 2/3ft of latic on top...

[basenjibratz]

We've had a doggy door since 2002. There have been times when we've closed the door b/c we've smelled a skunk at night roaming and we've jumped out of bed to lock the door. We've also have forgotten to open the door in the morning and our two dogs have held their pee/poop all day! What a miracle. Thru all the years, only Talker has pooped in the house b/c we've left the door closed.

We are in the midst of remodeling and have added french doors which meant we had to change doggy doors to one that now is cut thru the wall. This means that they now have to pass thru one door, go thru the middle section and then out the other door. This was a problem for them b/c they were not use to the extra step. We now keep the flap open on one side of the door and have completely removed the second flap that was on the outside. We also added a strip of carpet in the middle b/c Savannah seemed to not like stepping onto the middle metal piece. They've adjusted now and go thru the door slowly but easily.

[youngandtired]

I have a doggie door and we love it, not to mention my Basenji, Sahara. I also have underground electric fence, so that keeps her in the yard. I leave it open most of the time, but I have had to close it when I didn't want her to go outside. I have not had any trouble with other animals coming, I live just outside the city limits, and my town is small, not many wild animals near me. It has been really warm here in NC so I have not closed it at night, but when cold weather comes I will close it. Sahara goes out by herself when she has to potty during the day, but most of the time I take her out at night on her leash. She does not like the darkness by herself, silly girl. haha!!!! By the way I never use the crate anymore, she is free to go since I got the fencing.