Dogs in places that dogs are not supposed to be

I am faced with a dilemma.

You see, in real life, I had some bad experiences as a child and now I’m deathly afraid of dogs. (Made worse by the fact that, as dog owners like to remind me, they can sense my fear and get aggressive toward me because of it.) As a result I’ve never had a dog and don’t have a lot of experience with what they can do.

But with how I’ve designed my IFComp entry, I now need one puzzle involving a dog opening a locked door. I know plenty of ways that cats get into places they’re not supposed to be, but dogs? No idea at all.

And thus I turn to the forum for help! People who know dogs, what are some ways that a clever and unattended dog can get into somewhere it doesn’t belong? I’m optimistic that I can come up with a fun puzzle (and it’s only one part of a larger segment), but my inspiration has run completely dry, and I need some new directions to look in.

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A locked door? Staring at a likely human with adorable puppy-dog eyes is probably going to be their most effective tactic. Beyond that, rushing in or out when the door gets opened a crack, but I’m having a hard time figuring out any lockpicking stratagems (wriggling in through a broken screen window or digging into a cellar could be plausible, depending on the environment, I suppose)

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Some questions for clarification: What type of door are we talking about, and what does the locking mechanism look like? Lever-style door handles tend to be pretty easy for pooches to figure out, and particularly sharp ones will have no problem manipulating the pinch-style locks you find on bedroom doors. Also, were you thinking of any particular type of dog? Certain breeds can be more disposed to these types of shennanigans than others.

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The dog is an especially clever collie, and the mechanism can be any sort, as long as it lends itself to a parser IF puzzle. (The dog obeys your commands, and DOG, OPEN DOOR is a bit too simple for this.)

Strictly speaking it doesn’t even need to be locked, as long as it stops someone from going through it. Jammed, blocked, etc work just as well.

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A herding pup then. What about giving him/her a command to shove a bunch of identical objects to form a barrier in front of the door? Chairs instead of sheep. A clever floof who has been trained to work in the traditional capacity should be able to extrapolate knowledge for something like that pretty easily.

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You could look into how service dogs are trained to open doors. This has some explanation and photos: 2022 Winter Impact Newsletter Full Res (helpingpaws.org)

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Just wanted to chime in to say I’m sorry things turned out this way. Dogs have been some of the sturdiest and most loyal friends in my life. Our world is a richer place because of them. Hopefully you’ll have a positive experience with a dog some day, even if it’s at a distance.

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One of my childhood dogs got into my room once. The door was closed. The way I describe this sounds theoretical, but I later directly observed her opening another door this way, after learning how it was done on my own door.

She had started scratching at the door, and I guess she had started standing on her hind legs, usually out of anxious habit, and continued scratching.

She started losing her balance, so she probably tipped left and right, stumbling a bit to stay upright.

Even though our doorknobs were metal, smooth, and spherical, her paws eventually applied pressure against the side of the doorknob, as she started leaning on the doorknob as a balancing aid. Her pawing and scratching continued until one of the motions applied enough pressure and friction to cause the doorknob to rotate, and she successfully pushed the door open, because she was already leaning into it.

No lever-shaped handles, and she wasn’t trained to do this. She opened a door entirely on accident. I closed the door again, and she reopened it, much faster the second time. Then, a few days later, I saw her do this to another door, and that’s when I figured out how she did it.

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Also, if we aren’t just talking about doors: Dogs can get into an incredible number of areas if they see something that excites them enough to just…leap over barriers.

Seriously.

Given enough motivation, I have seen tiny dogs clear walls and fences and other barriers that I never thought they could clear. They just get inspired, I suppose. They usually can’t reverse this; once they have achieved their goal, there’s no motivation to return to a more boring location, and the fence is now suddenly a proper obstacle again.

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My dog can’t figure out how to get a treat from under an upside-down plastic cup.

But she did jump up and accidentally turn the deadbolt with a flailing paw once.

Taking a page from @ChristopherMerriner’s doggy playbook, I think the most likely solution would be that a dog convinces a cat to help open the lock.

I’m also sorry about your bad dog experience. My dogs have all been gentle sweethearts with everyone. I’ve been bitten by a poorly socialized dog, so I know how scary it is, though. It certainly made me much warier of dogs I don’t know well.

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My lurcher is particularly cautious (or dim) and won’t even go through an open door that isn’t open wide enough, but cleverer or bolder dogs might do any of the following:

  • Jump over a child gate
  • Dislodge a blocked door by barrelling into the door at speed
  • Squeeze through a cat flap or move normally through a dog door
  • Jump and press a doorbell so someone else opens the door
  • Remove an impediment that has fallen, blocking the door (say, an umbrella has fallen over, jamming the door on the other side, a clever dog could be commanded to pick up the umbrella)
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Aha! This is giving me ideas—perhaps you need to clear a path so that you can run at it at full speed? The door is up in an attic, so it’s very plausible that there’s miscellaneous Stuff in the way, and the puzzle can be about clearing that away.

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This is very plausible. Almost every attic I’ve ever been in was cluttered with Stuff.

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Dachshunds will not only dig holes but also make a beeline for preexisting holes that will accommodate them.

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That’s a good point, and I’m sad there’s no real way to incorporate hole-digging into this; based on other design concerns, I have other puzzles that have to go in the outdoors area, and the dog-getting-into-a-place puzzle has to go in the attic.

I wonder if a dog would dig at carpet to reach under something, though…

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Could it be something like you somehow get a window open and toss a treat inside such that the dog follows it (but has to jump down inside to do so, such that it can’t get out) and it’s been established it knows how to operate latch-handle doors and it’s been established that there isn’t a deadbolt, just the lock built into the latch handle, so calling the dog makes it exit that door, thus unlocking/opening it for you?

edited: actually, more fun than a treat would be the toy the dog loves to play fetch with.

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The preexisting hole—or tunnel, as I suppose to the better term in this case—would not have to be made of earth.

I apologize for the vertigo-inducing camera angles in the video. Content warning: Dogs.

Dachshund Puppies

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oops, didn’t see the attic requirement. Although it’s still vaguely plausible… if the house has been expanded over the years, there are weirder things than that there could be a wall with a window inside. Or is the challenge to get into the attic from a lower floor?

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This is the current plan:

The puzzle I’m working on here is to open the door from Attic East to Laboratory. The exact arrangement is flexible, though; I’ve designed a puzzle to get into the attic in the first place, and an item you need in the Laboratory, but pacing-wise it feels too fast. So I need some puzzle between those two things, and blocking the Laboratory door is the obvious choice.

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Laboratory has ventilation duct work that extends outside of it. Yank a section of duct out, build a crate-stairway to the opening, toss toy into duct.

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