We just moved into a new rented house with lovely doors everywhere. Since we’re in the tropical heat of Jakarta, one or more rooms generally has air con on, and thus bedroom and office doors are often kept closed.
We have a nine-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel - a breed I read somewhere described as “canine velcro.” That’s an apt description; he has GOT to be with his peeps at all times (if he’s awake, that is).
This combination is leading to a problem. For example, say I’m reading in the study with the AC on. Of course the dog will be there with me - most likely fast asleep under a desk. Then I decide to go cook dinner but know I’ll be back in the study soon, so I close the door behind me. Ten minutes later, the dog wakes up, realizes he is alone (oh, the horror), and begins to frantically scratch the door.
The bedroom door is already scratched up; as things now stand it is only a matter of time until every door in the house is damaged. We’re not sure what to do to prevent this - the level of hyper-vigilance required to ensure that the dog is never, ever on the wrong side of a closed door will be impossible to sustain forever.
Anyway, I am wondering if we could put booties on his front paws as a solution. That strikes me as a bad idea because I can’t imagine that it would be good for his feet, especially in the tropics, to be wrapped up all the time. However, the bit of internet browsing I’ve done does suggest, in pet articles, that booties can be used for this purpose. I have not yet found a brand/style advertised for this purpose though.
Thoughts, anyone? For now we are going to try to be vigilant, put him in his crate when we leave the house, and leave the door to the enclosed back garden open at all times, and feed him out there (so he doesn’t scratch at the front door to be let out).
The other option would be to put some kind of protector on the doors, but I don’t see how we can do that without hammering in plexiglass or something - and that kind of damage defeats the purpose.
(We had dog doors installed at our old house, but the doors in this new house don’t really lend themselves to that solution, especially the front door, which is a huge, imposing double door. Not sure how we’d remove, store, and replace it without incurring ridiculously high carpentry fees.)
TLDR version: Would wearing dog booties all day in a warm climate hurt our dog’s foot health? It’s the only solution I can think of as an alternative to badly scratched doors, since door protectors and doggie doors aren’t practical.
