I'll get the door!

When, in the past, a dog has been intensely reactive to door sounds and also towards the guests entering his owners home the dog is being irresponsible with the privilege of free roaming in his home. In this mentally aroused state of barking at windows/sounds/sights, charge the door barking and jumping all over the company many dogs will also nip and bite. So, when we have very irresponsible dogs who have a long history of make poor/dangerous choices in the home, we don’t extend them the privilege of free roaming but instead have them hold place command CALMLY on their comfy dog bed. This makes it much easier and safer for the handler to correct the dogs mindset (from overexcited back to calm when triggered) and his obedience (should he break command we can readily restore him to ‘Place’) and allows the handler to keep guests safe from the overexcited door reactive dog.

We correct all forms of mental arousal and we reinforce calmness and obedience. I like to do lots and lots of desensitization exercises during training where I knock and ring the doorbell until dogs no longer feel triggered by it. Doing this before a real guest ever arrives so that we can eliminate the first trigger… the knock or the bell sound, is important.

Once accomplished, we can then move on to having guests knock and ring the door and come in so that we can correct all forms of mental arousal that the dog directs at the guests and then also reinforce the dog when he’s calm and ignoring our company (aka coexisting politely!). Likewise, to be fair to the dog, we’ll ask our guests to ‘please ignore the dog’ so that our guests don’t intentionally trigger mental arousal through touching, baby talking, or otherwise interfering with the dog while he’s hard at work being calm and holding command in his dog bed… which is a very tall order for our reactive friends!