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Matey and I are going to show you the very useful trick of training your
dog to open up a door.
To begin teaching this trick, you want to first get them comfortable
pulling on a rope out of your hand, in other words, training to play tug
with you. Once you have that and they're excited about grabbing onto the
rope, you're going to attach that rope onto a door. In this case, I have it
on a crate door. You could also put it on a drawer or on a door handle, to
start training your dog to open up a real door at home.
So to begin, I'm going to just hold the door closed with one hand, and then
I'll pick up the toy and let her pull. Good. Once she pulls, I'll say
"good" and reward her. Once your dog gets this idea she has and is pretty
excited about it, I'm just going to hold it closed and say "pull". Good.
Now I'm going to try this without. If your dog does it when you haven't
told them to, just don't reward. I'm going to try and do this without
actually holding it shut. Pull! If she doesn't do it, she just doesn't get
rewarded. Good! Now if you want to add on a second behavior to this, we can
have her also get inside of her crate. Pull! Good! Crate! Good!
And that's how you train your dog to open a door.