Harder than it Seems

One helpful task that Morey does for me is hitting the automatic door buttons. It’s not that I can’t push them but since they often aren’t right by the door it is helpful to have Morey run and push them so I can stay on path to the door. Morey knows when I say “touch” he should look around for a button ( I should use a different word since technically “touch” means to touch what is in front of the dog). Because automatic buttons are all shapes and sizes they can sometimes be hard for Morey to locate. The standard blue squares are pretty simply, but I have also seen silver rectangles, silver circles and small round black buttons. Sometimes Morey needs a hint or a point in the right direction if he doesn’t recognize it right away.

Another challenge is when other “things” are on the wall next to the automatic buttons. At one of the doors at my work building there is a card reader next to the button.

 Morey sometimes gets confused and tries to “touch” the card reader instead. He knows to keep pushing until the door opens and he gets frustrated when the door won’t open. He will keep touching the button over and over with his nose and then sometimes tries to use his paws. It can be difficult to redirect him to the actual button when he gets that focused!

A more disturbing distraction is when the emergency fire alarm buttons are located close to the automatic buttons. The way they are designed I don’t think Morey could trigger the alarm but it always makes me nervous when I send him to touch a button next to a fire alarm.

                     As you can tell, opening doors is a lot more complicated than it first seems!