Does anyone make a door opener?

Here is the situation. My dog is a black lab cross and is the energetic and curious sort. This becomes a problem as when we are gone he apparently likes to roam the house. No big deal until he has to look behind the bedroom doors to see if anything is back there. He nudges the door, the door swings closed. Shortly there after he decides to panic and begins to attempt to dig under the door. You can see where this is going. I have scratch marks on many of my doors and he managed to dig a hole about 2 foot by 3 foot in the carpet in my son's room. That carpet has now been replaced to the tune of $650. Last night he shut himself in there again, despite the gate to the stairway being shut, the door being closed and a babyproofing handle being on the doorknob. He scratched the new carpet pretty well and I may have to replace a chunk of our brand new carpet. I have figured that I need some sort of reverse door closer. Something that I can rig up so that when he nudges the door it will want to stay open rather than atempting to swing itself shut. Does anyone make such a product? I have attempted to use a Ryobi Doorman and it will work to an extent except it pops open really fast when you open the door and it will only let the door open about 75 degrees.

I really do not want something rigged up with a hook or something similar as my wife and I entertain a lot (she is a pastor) and many people will see it.

This is driving me insane but I definitely do not want to get rid of my dog (although my wife might prefer it at this point).

We did try leaving the doors shut, however, he is good enough with his nose that he can turn the knob and get them open. We even tried using a childproofing knob cover and that didn't slow him down either.

The dog is no dummy... unfortunately

I never leave her there more than about 8 or 9 hours and she has never, never messed or peed in her box. Usually has to go pretty soon after she is out, though.

• Wedgeit

Do be consistent - do talk normal - do show displeasure in your voice � do take your time, repeat repeat repeat. - Do use 1 and 2 word commands - do give treats as a reward.

Don�t yell - don�t be mean - don�t use sentences.

He�ll have you trained before you know it.

The one to train him is the ONLY one who will feed him anything, and not break and give in to the sweet little guy.
If someone else has to feed him because the alpha male can�t, then the food should just appear in his dish.

�Right now we are shutting him in the utility room, but I think that is just way too mean�
You got that right.

�plus he pants a lot when he wants out.�
Anxiety will cause him to pant excessively. Thunderstorm causes one of mine to get anxious and pants excessive.
The other one is starting to pick up on his distress and is showing anxiety when he does it.
Remember puppies do pee often.

�Couple that with his shedding�
As for, shedding they always seem to be shedding all year, just more in summer and fall.

I had a Black Lab/ Dob, cross short hair � Great dog, died at 16 have a Black lab/Sheppard cross long hair is 14 now, super dog with people, but he will ignore my wife if he doesn�t want to come in.
have a Black lab/ ?? cross about 4. short hair, don�t know the other, she was sold to the original owner as a purebred
they couldn�t handle her, they gave her to my son, he couldn�t handle her with a small kid and a new born.
So he gave her to me, well-behaved dog now (but she still gets too excited and happy when people come around}
I think it�s because she was always in one of those D*^ cages just out long enough to get (excited) in trouble, and then right back in.

Anyway, this is something that has just recently started occurring. Since we moved into a new house. The previous house was more of an open floor plan and only had three interior doors in the whole house. Insofar as training him, I am curious how you would attempt to do that. Every training manual I have ever read urges you to correct behavior instantly when it happens. As this is something that only happens when we are gone, I don't see how attempting to train it out of him is possible.

But like I said above I think I got it licked.

Or cut a dog size passage in each door and put in a flap.

Gerald J.

Keith