If you want to know Perry’s favorite thing in the world, it’s sleeping on the couch. His next favorite thing in the world is chasing the dog team — for about 15 yards. Now 12 years old, Perry’s biggest thrill comes in the summer time when we are operating our summer dog sled tours. I’ve seen him shake with excitement when he knows the team is almost back from the run. His whole body seizes up and you can see him twitching with nervous energy. He lets out a deep bark and then goes bounding through the team like a wild bowling ball trying to knock down whatever dog he can.
“He’s training the pups,” Travis always tells our guests. “They have to learn to ignore him and just keep running.”
It really is great training. Over the course of the summer, the younger dogs learn to ignore Perry and Perry continues to have fun. At the end of the day, Perry is worn out and gets to come inside or he will sleep on the bed of our demonstration sled.
But every now and then Perry gets locked out of the house in the rain.
It’s been happening more and more frequently this winter. And if there is one thing Perry hates, it’s the rain. He is extremely thin coated and hates the cold. For a long time, our dogs could come and go as they please through a small doggie door located in the side of our house but the miserable weather led me to lock our doggie door. For a week, Perry skulked about at the injustice. At times, it was as if his whole body were trying to convey the message this is so unfair! But the endless procession in and out of the house by wet, muddy, dogs got tiresome. So the doggie door got nixed.
It was supposed to give me more control over the dogs but has ended up being a one way exit out of the house. Perry was the first one to learn. The stubborn old leader did not want to be told what to do. So he learned how to lift the cover and let himself outside so he could go do his business.
Getting back in, however, proved a bit trickier.
Sometimes he would come and sit at the door and barks – which was great when we could hear him. Often, however, we are in our basement working on sleds or massaging down some of our sled dogs and so his barks don’t carry quite far enough. Over time, however, Perry has invented a new solution.
We employ a driveway buzzer. It’s original purpose was to alert us when people stopped by for tours so we could go greet them. It’s a simple motion detector that, when activated, produces a very loud beep that can be heard just about anywhere on our property regardless of whether or not the dogs are barking. We’ve been trained to the buzzer. When the buzzer rings, we go open the front door. It’s like our doorbell but louder, more effective, and gives us a 30 second advantage on anyone who’s pulled in.
So leave it to Perry, who has gotten sick of getting stuck outside, to start using the driveway buzzer to get let in.
At first, we were confused. One day we heard it BEEP! Looked out and saw nothing. About 10 minutes later it went on and off for about a minute, as if someone was just walking back and through it.
“What the heck?” Travis said.
I went to the front door and opened it. At full speed, Perry came rushing down the driveway, jumped onto the front step, and raced inside.
“Well that was clever,” I thought.
And now we have a whole slew of inside dogs who have learned to ring the doorbell when it is time for them to come inside.
