Teaching a Dog to Wait For Permission to Go Out an Open Door

By: David Codr

Published Date: December 13, 2018

Bubba Hans - Teaching a Dog to Wait For Permission to Go Out an Open Door

For this Omaha dog training session taught 3 year-old German Shepherd Hans to wait at an open door for permission to go out an open door and tips to stop 4 year-old Labrador Mix Bubba from dominating Hans.

We started out by discussing different types of dog training as I noticed Bubba was wearing an e collar. I actually used a shock collar on one of my own dogs years ago before I worked as a dog behaviorist and new better. But after educating myself on their use and seeing the negative long term impact on my own personal dog Farley, I no longer use those devices.

Any type of punishment or pain causing device may work in the short time, but its very easy for the dog to get confused and think the shock is coming from something they are looking at or reacting to. That is why I exclusively use positive dog training methods now. I want the dog to want to do what I want because I have taught it and motivated it via positive reinforcement.

I think the reason Bubba dominated or played to roughly with Hans was insufficient exercise. Your average dog needs an hour of exercise every day; preferably spread throughout the day. I shared a few ways to exercise a dog inside and suggested the guardians keep an exercise journal for a few weeks to help them find the right amount of exercise to put the dogs into a position to succeed.

I offered a number of dog behavior tips to flip the leader follower dynamic like petting with a purpose, passive training, the importance of rules and structure and ways to disagree with unwanted actions and behaviors (escalating consequences).

I also suggested the guardians look for ways to delay gratification like making the dog sit and drop the ball before picking it up to thrown when playing fetch, sit to ask for attention or wait for permission to go out an open door.

You can watch me train a dog to wait for permission to go through an open door in the free dog training video below.

Teaching a dog to wait at the door for permission to exit is all about breaking it down into small steps and then practicing each step individually until the dog is behaving how you want. Once that is the case, you can move onto the next step and repeat the process until you have taught the dog how to behave throughout the whole activity.

Not only will this waiting at the door help the dogs practice calming themselves down at excited times, it will help them build up respect for the humans as authority figures. And you don’t have to be a mixed breed or German Shepherd trainer to do this. As long as you have time and patience, you can train your dog to do the same thing. These new door manners for dogs will help the settle down quicker when guests arrive in the future.

To help the guardians remember all the dog behavior tips I shared in this in-home dog training session, we shot a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.

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This post was written by: David Codr