DIY Doggy Doorbell

doggy doorbell

Is your dog the strong silent type? Ever wish he or she could tell you when it is time to go do their business? This Reddit r/DIY user found a simple solution — a doggy doorbell!

The dog in question isn’t very vocal, so his owner sought a simple solution, similar to Pavlov’s bells — the only problem? He needed some range on it, as you can’t always hear a few bells throughout the entire house. The solution? A wireless doorbell that he repackaged into a dog friendly button!

Compared to our last post on an automatic pet watering system, this one is a very simple hack that requires absolutely no electrical experience. It could be improved upon quite easily though, by wiring a second switch in parallel so the dog can ring the doorbell from the outside of the house too!

According to the owner, it only took a few treats to get the pooch trained well enough to use it whenever he needs to go out!

[Via Reddit]

16 thoughts on “DIY Doggy Doorbell

  1. Could a dog person explain in more detail how you get the dog to understand that it needs to push the button when it needs to do its business? I’ve never quite understood how something like that is done. Getting it to step on it to get a treat, sure, but to make it understand it should do it when it’s time to go poop?

    1. Dogs were one of the first animals domesticated, possibly the first. They diverged from wolves around 40,000 years ago, and since then have been bred not just for temperament, size, shape, etc, but also to work alongside humans. They are very, *very* good at learning by association (ie “when A happens, B soon follows”).

      There have also been studies showing they look to humans for cues, something wolves don’t do. Dogs will (some breeds/individuals better than others) look to where you point, look at what you look at, and imitate what you do.

      Example:
      Growing up, my family had a Labrador retriever. We trained him to come on command, always using a gesture with the command to make it easier to understand. We’d say “come” and point down at our feet, and he’d come over (if he felt like it). As he got older we discovered he’d generalized this concept: you could point at particular point on the floor, eg to make him move out of the way of the vacuum.

      This dog liked to make us laugh. If he did something naughty and anyone laughed, he’d do it again. This is how my mom accidentally taught him the command “bite daddy.”

  2. Please remember that if a dog wants to do it’s business,
    it must first contact ‘Companies House’ when setting up the business.
    Companies House will then inform the dog if its business name is already registered or not.

  3. I like it. But, dogs lie. My dog also does the “staring” thing, like ALL the time. My dog would never be IN the house if it could. This thing would be ringing all dang day long.
    I like it, but no thanks.

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