AN OPEN DOOR IS NOT AN INVITATION

Impulse control at valuable thresholds!

Thresholds are a very important piece of structure that when overlooked, gives the dogs the opportunity to build mental arousal and over excitement- rudely barging through doors and drag their handler along helplessly at the other end of the leash. We humans will set ourselves up for a lot of frustration and annoyance when we allow thresholds to become an excitement trigger for our dogs, when we we allow our dogs to rush through doorways and when we allow our dogs to practice a rude and over excited mindset. At every valuable threshold (crate door, house door, car door, gates, etc.) we have the opportunity to take control and correct unwanted behaviour and teach polite behaviour. With the right training approach, it only takes about 5-10 seconds to have the dog respect the threshold calmly and politely defer to handler leadership each time we go through a doorway. This small but mighty moment has exponential positive benefits to the dogs mindset (handler focused, tuned in, calm, respectful, polite, etc.) and will trickle down to affect every other aspect of his life too. Likewise, allowing the dog to be an over excited, rude and pushy bulldozer at thresholds has exponential negative repercussions on the dog’s mindset (mental arousal, reactivity, rude, pushy, over excited, etc.) which will also affect every other aspect of his life so when you have the right communication tools and the right training approach, it’s a pretty easy choice!