The Dogs Outnumber Us
For anyone who’s ever met me, you know my dog Koda is my entire world. And if you’ve gotten to know my family, you know we are dog people. I kid you not — there are four humans in my family and six dogs.
Trust me, it’s impossible to get a photo of them together.
The dogs outnumber us.
That reality shapes more decisions in my house than I ever expected. From stairs to the bed and sofa, to renovation decisions I make as I go — everything runs through the same filter:
Is this usable for them?
What started as a practical project — give Koda an enclosed yard — slowly turned into something else. It became an exercise in empathy, planning, and thinking about experience. In other words, it became a UX problem. Just in the physical world instead of a digital one.
When you have six dogs, a fence stops being a fence. It becomes a system of users, with edge cases and failure points.
When friends and family come over with their dogs, there’s always that awkward moment at the gate. Someone trying to lift a girthy pug over (yes, Titus, you). Someone else attempting to hoist a wiggly puppy over a section that might be just a little too tall. Meanwhile, the older, arthritic dogs need to guide themselves in gently, without jumping or straining.
And if there’s already a dog in the yard, you have to be mindful of how the gate swings. One wrong direction, one distracted second, and you’ve created the perfect opportunity for a jailbreak.
A jailbreak is my nightmare. I live on a country road. People drive fast. Getting dogs into a safe space quickly isn’t optional — it’s essential.
It’s friction. The physical, real life kind.
So while I was building the fence, I kept thinking about that moment, not the moment I would use it, but the moment my family would. Someone whose hands are full or has a couple dogs. Someone managing an excited dog who just wants to play with their buddy.
That’s when the idea of a special hidden dog door entry started forming.
I built a secondary gate. Subtle, integrated, not obvious at first glance, but positioned just so those in on the secret can naturally approach it without others knowing its there. It opens easily, with one hand, and leads directly into a section of the yard designed to give dogs space to enter, orient themselves, and settle before moving farther in.
No tight turns. No confusing paths. No bottlenecks of dogs and humans trying to negotiate space at the same time.
It’s a small thing, but small things are often where experience lives.
One of the things renovation keeps teaching me is that good design isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself. When something is intuitive, people don’t stop to admire it, they just move through it smoothly, without stress or hesitation. That’s the goal.
While I was building, my family was part of every step. Holding boards, helping measure, stepping back with me to look at sight lines and flow. Measuring their dogs girthy barrel tummies, to ensure the entry was big enough (again, sorry Titus). And the dogs, of course, were constant participants—testing boundaries before they were finished, unintentionally revealing the ways space really gets used versus how you think it will.
Building is a lot like a wireframing exercise.
Dogs are honest users. Watching Koda, Titus, Emmie, Wiggins, Nibbler and Iggy helped me adjust spacing, rethink where the entry should sit, and consider how movement actually happens in a yard like ours. Not in theory, but in reality.
That’s another UX/usabliity lesson: observation beats assumption every time.
What I ended up with isn’t just a fence. It’s an experience designed for real life—muddy paws, humans juggling their dogs, and something that feels custom just for them.
And maybe that’s why I love renovation so much. It forces you to think about people in a very real way. Not personas or hypothetical journeys, but actual movement, weight, sound, hesitation, and habit.
You start asking different questions:
Where will someone pause?
Can it close on its own?
What will they be carrying?
How easy is that to open?
Will Titus fit? (sorry Titus)
How do you make something work well without needing to over-explain it?
Does it need a doorbell?
Those are the same questions I ask when I design digital experiences. They just look different when you’re holding a post level instead of a mouse.
The dogs will always outnumber us in my famliy. The yard is busy now, happier, and a little bit easier to for our visitors. And every time someone guides their dog through the hidden gate, I’m reminded that the best design often goes unnoticed.
Which, in its own quiet way, means it’s working.
At least the front is finished!