My teammates at work might think that my most demanding job is prepping for the annual conference where I select and manage the speaker program. They’d be mistaken.

My year-round, 24 x 7 x 365 job is to serve as doorperson.

I spent Christmas with some of my favorite members of the extended “pack-family” — Stella and Cruiser. They, along with Orly and Dotty, kept me pretty busy. Besides the critical responsibility of letting them in and out, constantly, there were auxiliary duties: Playing tug with Stella and her Large Orange Toy. Throwing balls and other toys so Cruiser and Dotty could run after them, catch them or pick them up, then run around with them and not bring them back.

But mostly, it’s doors. Dogs and doors have an ancient issue, which is that dogs are always on the wrong side of the door. People, having invented doors and therefore caused the problem, are duty-bound to solve it. Over and over and over.

Some dogs, like a very young Orly, learn at a young age to use tools to get their humans to open doors more quickly. It’s really fun to ring the bell over and over, getting the human to open the door, close it, open it, close it. Bonus points if you time the ringing to seconds after the human sat back down.

Others try to use the magic sit, which only works if the human is in the same room and paying attention.

Dotty is learning the bell system, mostly from Orly. She still abuses it, asking to go out to play, wanting to go in and out constantly.

As a member of a steeped-in-tech generation, Dotty is quickly picking up a new solution I am testing out, the Smart Bell 2.0 from Mighty Paw. I first saw this as a “Gear of the Year” selection in Whole Dog Journal, and quickly ordered one. Dotty adjusted to the change immediately, while Orly, of a slightly older generation, is taking a little longer to catch on to the nose-press gadget that triggers a sound that gets the human to come to the door.

It’s still new, but advantages I see are that I can put a transmitter outside, so the girls can let me know when they are ready to come in, and the sound (which offers multiple ring tones and volume levels) is loud enough that I can hear it anywhere in the house.

I’ll let you know how it’s going!