Little cuties give their owner the slip through safety gates
Ask any dog trainer where dogs should be kept to best protect you, and they’ll tell you inside the house with you so that they are clear about what they are protecting: YOU. Not your cars or their kennel, or the cricket bats left lying around.
The problem of course, is constantly letting them in and out when there is something passing by to bark at, or when they need to visit the grass patch. If you have little dogs, the solution is to fit expandable security doors. Take a look at the pictures of my colleague Charlene’s cute Jack Russell and Dachshund easily slipping through her safety gates.
Admittedly, they are tiny dogs and can get through the small gaps. Bigger dogs would obviously have a problem, but then so would pint-sized burglars, which is reassuring.
For small dogs, this is a better solution than safety gates with a doggy door cut out of them. Trellidor franchises will do this for customers if they insist on it, but they then have to sign an indemnity form because the strength of the safety gate cannot be guaranteed when it has a weak point like this.
Lying in wait behind the safety gates
Personally, I’d rather get up a hundred times a day to let my White Alsatian out, rather than shut her out of the house. She has been a great deterrent because passers-by see her sitting at my entrance door behind my Trellidor safety gate. They know they’d have to get past her to get to me and would rather not chance it!
She’s so well-known that when the electricity meter reader was at our driveway gate recently, he asked where the dog was before he’d set foot inside our property. And chancers checking up on our security measures don’t even bother to ring our gate intercom: they know what’s lurking inside waiting for them as she barks madly at them through the safety gate.
Have a look at our previous blog on how baby Nicolaas crawls through a doggy door cut into one of our safety gates. Even though we don’t recommend it, the video of him getting through is very cute!
Contributor: Lindy Barry
