Imagine that your dog seems to lose his mind when someone comes to the door. Barking, lunging, jumping on the door itself or on you, ready to leap up on your visitors when they come inside – he doesn’t respond to anything you say. If you can’t get between him and the door in time, your dog might run right out when you open it, race around the front yard, maybe into the street, or maybe just make your visitor’s experience very unpleasant. Your dog is reacting impulsively to the stimuli created when someone approaches your front door.
What Should Your Dog Do at the Door?
Your dog doesn’t know what to do at the front door unless you teach him. He’s creating his own future of presenting impulsive, annoying, dangerous behaviors. I’ve met many pet parents who don’t realize that they need to prepare a dog to manage himself when there’s knocking or a door bell sound, or even the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.
This is one of the reasons I created the Beyond Basic Manners Program. It helps students learn to manage and train their dogs for real-world situations, and thus, Front Door Manners is a significant set of lessons. Yes, multiple lessons. Dogs and owners need several skills to put together in order to successfully navigate an event at the oh-so-exciting front door, where such amazing things happen! A few foundation skills can help you and your dog provide a calmer greeting for visitors, delivery personnel, or the kid from next door.
What Should YOU Do at the Door?
I’m going to be blunt here. People spend too much time watching to see how a dog is going to respond, without being prepared to help him respond the way they want him to. I’ve seen this in way too many different types of situations. “Let’s see what he’s going to do” is often the first step to the birth of a spiral of unpleasant behaviors. It’s always good to give the dog a chance to do the right thing, but that only takes a second! When his behavior is clearly going in the wrong direction, you need to jump in and prevent him from decompensating into chaos.
No Bad Questions, But. . .
When I talk to groups of people about dog training, I am too often asked questions like, “What do I do after my dog starts pulling on the leash?” or “What do I do after my dog has gotten into the trash can, pulled out a paper towel, and won’t give it back?” In the case of today’s topic, Front Door Manners, people sometimes ask, “How do I stop my dog from barking and lunging so I can answer the door?” There are no “bad” questions, but these are not the ones pet parents should be asking.
Constructive Questions
The question that should always be in your mind when you have a problem dog behavior is, “What do I need to do to prevent my dog from doing the behavior I don’t want? Whether that’s pulling on the leash, taking stuff out of the trash can, or barking and lunging at the door, you have the power to make the last time he did it be the LAST time he does it. That’s a productive goal. Yes, you can teach your dog to resist the behavior you don’t like. Yes, you should teach your dog an alternative behavior to choose instead. But if you don’t prevent the behavior you don’t want, training these skills will be much harder.
You Are Your Dog’s Best Trainer
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, get ready to roll your eyes. Prevent the behaviors you don’t want; reinforce the behaviors you do want. There, I said it again. LOL This concept is truly the basis of behavior modification. We have to get the learner to do something we like so we can apply positive reinforcement and build it into the final behavior we really want. If the dog is busy doing the same old annoying behavior, there’s no way he’s going to explore doing something different. Be your dog’s best trainer. Embrace this idea and build your skills of observation, quick response, and reinforcement.
Practice Makes Permanent
If your dog continues to practice behaviors you don’t like, he will continue to get better at those behaviors. He’ll embed those behaviors into his repertoire so that they become almost habitual, if he hasn’t already. This is why we need to remind ourselves that dogs (and humans) get better at whatever they practice most often. Vince Lombardi was right when he said, “Practice makes permanent; perfect practice makes perfect.”
Training Creates Opportunities
When you prevent unwanted behaviors, your dog has the mental space and energy to try something else. You build new behaviors into his repertoire every time you help him practice basic foundational exercises outside of the stimulus picture that cues the behaviors you don’t want – like the front door. Carefully building sets of behaviors before putting your dog into the situation of a visitor at the door gives you the opportunity to reinforce behaviors you like.
Teach your dog what you want him to do. He’ll be calmer, able to think. He’ll use a problem-solving approach to choose his behaviors, rather than impulsively reacting. He will most likely choose a behavior that he’s been practicing in training sessions with you. You will immediately reinforce the behaviors you’ve been building, in a new situation. Suddenly, you’re on the road to better Front Door Manners!
Barking at the Door Won’t “Just Stop”
You see, it’s not realistic to allow your dog to lose his mind, practice behaviors you don’t like, and then expect him to stop doing so. Once he gets into the behavior set, it’s too hard to turn it around and ask for something else when the environment that produced the behavior is still in place. When you set your dog up to show you the behaviors you want so you can reinforce them, he will succeed immediately and the current event will go down in history as one that helped you build productive behaviors.
Door Manners Require a Plan
You have you plan, and you’ve been diligently conducting training sessions with your dog. You’ve been protecting your dog from the stimuli he’s not yet ready for. But reality – or is it Murphy’s Law? – dictates that people will come to your door when you and your dog are not ready. You need a backup plan.
Gotta Have a Backup Plan
If someone comes to the door at an inopportune time and you just can’t manage the situation, it’s backup plan time! Quickly take your dog into another room, maybe attach a leash and steadily feed him treats as you go to the door, or maybe yell through the door, “Just a minute – I’m training my dog!” You know what will work best because you are your dog’s best trainer. You know what he’s ready for.
One easy backup plan is to have a baby gate already set up, preventing your dog from approaching the front door. This particular plan allows you to toss treats to your dog for being calm with all four feet on the floor, as you answer the door. You get the same opportunity with your dog on a leash. Both plans allow you to reinforce calm behaviors in the face of a visitor at the door, even if it takes some effort on your part. Choose the backup plan you and your dog need at this point in training. Create new backup plans as you progress.
Recovery from Failure
You will sometimes fail, and it’s not the end of the world – or of achieving your goal. You need a plan for what to do if your dog starts to bark. Notice when your dog barks once or twice, but looks at you as though to see if that’s the right thing to do. He noticed you! That’s progress. Grab that moment, reinforce the behavior of checking in, and ask him for a behavior he knows – sit, lie down, touch your hand, whatever – give him an easy success!
By combining these behaviors, one bark and a check-in, your dog is showing you he’s conflicted. Because of your training, he now has some options in his little doggie brain and he’s trying to make a good choice. Should he bark? Or do something else? He’s not sure what that “something else” is. But your training exercises are paying off and your dog is caught between the “old” behavior of losing his mind, barking like a crazed thing, and the possibility of following your guidance, your idea for a better behavior. Help him out.
Failure Might Be Just a Smaller Success
In the case above, you’re reinforcing a shorter-duration behavior than the dog was exhibiting before. It is a different behavior from extended, non-stop barking, where he can’t even hear you talking to him, and escalating to really going nuts at the door. One short bark is very different from a series of barking, lunging, and whatever else that leads to. Reinforcing it will help you build to your final goal of “no barking.” But you always need to be training smarter.
Plan Your Next Door Training Session
You need to work smarter at getting your dog to start the correct behavior earlier so there is no barking at all – make note for your next training session. Nonetheless, you got some positive reinforcement in that made sense to your dog and moved you closer to your goal. You turned a bit of failure into a small success.
Abort! Move Away From the Door
If you and your dog fail to the point where he doesn’t check in with you and you can’t get his attention, simply abort the attempt. You don’t need to say anything to the dog, and you certainly don’t need to punish him. Just ask the visitor to wait a minute. Get your dog out of the situation as quickly and calmly as possible. Give him treats as you walk him away to put your backup plan into action. Failure is merely an indication of the need to train smarter. Use this information to set up your next training session.
Training Exercises
Something to Do at the Door
Your dog needs a job he can start immediately when someone comes to the door. The actual stimulus or cue may be someone pulling into the driveway, walking onto the porch, or the doorbell ringing. When that happens, what should your dog do? Currently, he either doesn’t know OR he already has a routine that leads to losing his mind, barking, lunging, and more.
Mat Training
I like dogs to lie on a mat near the door. Their curiosity is sated by being able to see who’s there. Mat training is incredibly useful in many situations, so you will reap many benefits from practicing it.
Start mat training somewhere other than at the door if your dog already has problem behaviors at the door. Separate this new behavior from the chaos so that you can later use it to dispel the chaos. Once your dog is quick to lie on the mat when you ask, start practicing by the front door. After a while, start pretending there’s someone at the door and open the door just a crack. Finally, practice with a friend who pretends to visit but doesn’t mind if you suddenly close the door to help your dog succeed!
Wait at the Door
Another behavior you can practice somewhere other than at the front door is simply “waiting” at a door or gate threshold. This is a game you and your dog can both enjoy, especially playing it indoors in the hot summer weather. When he’s good at it, you can start building a routine at the back door. Your dog can “wait” for you to open the door to go out to the back yard.
Carrying out your routine at every door and even at gates will help your dog embed “waiting” at thresholds into his behavioral repertoire. When you are both ready, arm yourself with tons of treats and practice at the front door, pretending someone is at the door.
Conditioning to Sounds at the Door
Your dog needs to make positive, happy associations with the sounds that are currently getting him amped up into his unpleasant door behavior. You can start this process by making a list of sounds like cars pulling into the driveway, car doors slamming, people walking up to the door, the doorbell, or knocking. You may need to include certain sounds unique to your front door if you have an entrance gate or other unusual situation.
Doorbell and knocking sounds are easy to find on YouTube. (You’ll see lots of videos describing their use as “pranking your dog.” Now, I’m rolling my eyes! Of course, you would never do this! Your goal is for your dog to be happy to hear the doorbell, run to his mat, and get a treat.)
Conditioning is simple. Play the sound and give a treat as soon as your dog hears it. Be clear and clean in your training sessions, and soon your dog will hear the sound and look to you for his treat. Now, you’re ready to practice with your own doorbell at your front door.
Keep Door Training Simple
Building small foundation behaviors allows you to construct your vision of a job your dog can do that is actually several behaviors, some all at once and some in series. When your dog knows what to do in a situation, he won’t have to make up his own job that you might not like. Of course, I’m ready to work through the Beyond Basic Manners Program with you if you want coaching to help you train quickly, efficiently, and effectively!
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