Just looking for ideas?
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None. Because I don't have a dog.
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What’s that matter? I don’t have a cat and made a cat tree cuz I was bored 
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Here's a dog animation I prepared for you and your dog. Hope it helps ha ha ha! (actually I just stole it of the interweb)
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Lights in the mudroom turns red when the garage overhead door is open. This way we know before we open the man door so the dog doesn't bolt when we take him through the garage to use the potty.
My Dad (RIP) used to have a favourite joke (which we all thought was pathetic) which he trotted out on a regular basis.
Man says "my doggie don't eat no meat. The guy asks, "why don't your doggie eat no meat?". "Because I don't got no doggie".
Now I think its brilliant and trot it out myself at every opportunity. Like now for example ha ha ha. Life is strange like that.
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I have one that when my wife and I leave the house, it arms a camera I have pointed at my dogs' crates. I also have a Sonoff Basic on a small light above their food/water dishes and turns on when they go into the kitchen to eat or drink.
What's funny is that my older one (American Staffordshire Terrier) learned that if he walks around the house, he can trigger the lights to come on and that's how he lets me know he needs to go out. He'll go from the living room to the hallway, into the bathroom, through my office, into the kitchen and end up in the living room again and then finally to the front door while every light in the house will be turned on. LOL
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One automation I’d like is to monitor when my dog eats. She needs to poop 45 minutes after she eats and we put down her food at 5:30 but sometimes she doesn’t eat right away. I wonder how I could do food full vs empty detection? Maybe by weight?
Place a motion sensor near her food dish where it won't get triggered by anything else is the easiest that I could think of. So, when she trips it, have it send a notification 45 minutes later. It's not foolproof (like if she walks away from her dish without eating (like mine do all the time)), but it's something you could refine over time.
You could do a pressure sensor approach, but most consumer pressure sensors wouldn't be triggered by that small of a weight change. But... a dry contact sensor on a small, manual scale might do the trick. So, when the food dish is full, the sensor is closed. As she eats, the sensor opens and voila, 45 minutes later, POOP! 
So wait - let me get this right, your dog is now using Automations to get your butt moving. He's got you well-trained! Nice!!
My youngest kitty is active as hell and triggers motion lighting all the time. I had to disable all motion lighting automations in sleep mode.
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Wouldn’t work for me, she takes one bit then walks away ALL the time
Yeah, he learned that a long time ago (plus he's a jerk!). LOL Now he's teaching our new one (a 8 pound JRT) to do the same thing. However, she's an evil little creature and will run through the house turning the lights on while my other one sleeps. So, now I see the lights come on and I get up only to find Reboot (yes, his name is Reboot) sleeping on the couch.
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Yeah, I figured. Both of mine do that. So, you'll want to look into the dry contact sensor approach then. I might actually take a stab at doing that myself as you've got me thinking. My wife will hate that I need to put in yet another Amazon order though. 
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Cool, I’ll wait until you try first 
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Ok, yeah! I like that. So, figuring out how to rig a dry contact sensor into it shouldn't be too hard. Added to my cart.
Nooo. eBay has them for $20 ish
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Cool, soooo you’ll do all the figuring and I’ll beta test the hell out of it after
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Eh, wouldn't be the first time. When I built my first lightshow Pi boxes, my neighbors were my beta testers. LOL
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I'm using a nyce tilt sensor on my dog food container. It counts every time I open the container, once the count becomes 25 I know I have 1/4 of the food left. Once that number becomes 25 and either me or my wife leave our work geofences, well get a push notification telling us to get dog food.
My kids/father have a habit of leaving the garage door and back garage man door open. If the dogs are let out they will use the opportunity to leave and explore. Now if the patio door opens and both the garage door and garage man door are open alexa will make a house announcement to run quick and close the garage.
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