Electronic Dog Door?

[Guest staticbrown]

I need advice from you veteran greyhound-owners out there. My wife and I adopted our greyhound, Opie, in 2001. He was our first "child", and he is loved as such. He is now 13 years old and has developed problems with bladder and bowel control, leading him to relieve himself (both ways) with some regularity on the carpet and (if we're lucky) the laminate. There's no way that we can let him out enough. Anything longer than about 3-4 hours without going out, and he is going to go on the carpet. Sometimes it happens even if we have let him out. We saw the vet about it and had him on medication for a time, but it didn't really help that much. I have been advised by some to have him 'put down', but that is too painful to think about and is not really an option that I want to consider right now. He has arthritis, and he doesn't get around (or up and down) like he used to, but he is still a member of the family. I am going to do everything I can to let him live out his life naturally. My next step, I think, is to get an automatic (electronic) dog-door and see if I can get him to use it. He is arthritic, and moves around a little gingerly, but I think I can teach him to use it to go out. I wanted to see if anyone has experience with any particular brands that have worked for them and their dog. Opie is only about 55 pounds now (down from around 75 when he was young and strapping), but he is, of course, as tall as he ever was. I am just concerned about having a large enough opening for him to get through. I wanted to go electronic so that no other critter (or person for that matter) could use the door as a point-of-entry into my house. A flap-type door that would fit a greyhound could let a burgler in as well. I hope that someone has some advice. Thanks in advance.

[2greytgreys]

Hi and welcome. I don't have any advice on the electronic dog door but I can understand what you are going through with Opie. My girl Tracy is also 13 and can't hold her bladder much longer than 3 or 4 hours either. I don't know if this is an option for you or not but this is what I've done.

 

There is one particular area in my house, the hallway to the kitchen, where Tracy seems to focus most when she just can't hold it. In order to protect the carpet I went to Lowes and bought a roll of the plastic that sticks to the carpet that you use when you are going to paint. I put that down in the hallway and then put potty pads on top of it. 99% of the time she hits the potty pads but sometimes she misses but it just goes on the plastic.

 

It's very easy to wipe up off the plastic and I just replace the plastic once a week so that it doesn't get too stuck to the carpet. It's worked very well for us but it may not be an option for you.

 

I'm sure others will chime in with more information for you. Good luck and I hope that Opie does okay.

[Guest Emmiesmom]

I do have an electronic dog door and it's been a Godsend! With four dogs, it's wonderful to get a full night's sleep while they go potty. SamsClub has the Hightech PowerPet door the cheapest. I recommend you buy a spare waterproof collar as they break every 9-12 months and SamsClub replaces them for free. If you have a gate to your yard, please, please, please padlock it. We lost our first greyhound because the meter reader left the gate open.

 

That being said, our new greyhound will not use the door and instead waits for us to come home to go potty. So it will depend on your dog and it does take some training.