Our pet is currently ill, which means she has diarrhea. She went in the basement twice while we were away (thank goodness for unfinished/concrete floors and her instincts), but I didn’t want her to go in the house while we were home and asleep. She’s very quiet and doesn’t wake us up, so what to do?

Yesterday I came home early and while I was here I caught her making a dash towards the basement so I jumped up and let her outside instead. That gave me an idea. If she heads towards the basement when she has to go, I can use the motion sensor in the stairwell to trigger some kind of automation while we’re asleep.

I took about 5 minutes and wrote a simple automation that turns on the bedroom lights 100% and plays an audible alarm. I was hoping she wouldn’t trigger it last night. Boy was I wrong.

After letting her out at 21:30, I went to bed. The alarm went off at 00:00 and I jumped out of bed to call her back upstairs and let her out. Back to sleep.

Then the alarm went off again at 02:30. Again I called her back upstairs and let her out before she could do anything in the house. Then back to sleep.

Then again at 04:30. Same routine.

I thought I would wake up before she set it off again but the dog alarm got me out of bed at 06:15. This time she was waiting for me at the top of the stairs before I could call her back up. I guess she had figured it out.

Although it was a rough night, there was nothing to clean off of the floor in the morning. Success!

Next up: teaching her how to press a button when she wants to go out. 🙂