Teaching Three Excited Dogs to Behave at the Door When Guests Visit

For this Omaha dog training session we taught three excited dogs (3 year-old Black Lab mix Buster on the left, 10 month-old Golden Retriever Bindi and 8 year-old English Lab Zeus) to stop charging the door when guests arrive.

The dogs were very excited when I arrived for the session. I used some dog behaviorist tricks and was able to get them to calm down enough so that I can sit down with the guardians to discuss the dog behavior problems they wanted help with.

I learned that the dogs didn’t really have very many rules, were rewarded for doing undesired actions and behaviors and probably need more exercise.

I spent an hour going over ways to flip the leader follower dynamic using positive reinforcement and positive dog training techniques like petting with a purpose and passive training.

Also covered the importance of rules and structure when you have multiple dogs as well as how to consistently and force them. Because dogs go through life probing to determine where boundaries and limits are, not being consistent can actually translate into a lot of confusion for the dogs.

One of the biggest problems the guardians wanted help with was the dog behavior at the door. The dogs get really excited and liked to jump up and bark like crazy when people ring the doorbell.

I pulled out my camera and handed it to one of the guardians while we had another member of the family head outside to pretend he was in arriving guest. This gave me the opportunity to demonstrate how I like to claim the door as well as offer some tips to stop dogs from rushing at the front door when guests arrive.

I recommended that the guardians call or text one another when they are on the way home so that the other members of the family can practice claiming the door this way. The more the family members practice with the dogs, the better the dogs behavior will be once they understand how they are supposed to behave and where the limits are.

By the end of the session the guardian was able to keep the dogs behind an invisible boundary several feet away from the door on her own. With a little practice, the dogs will start respecting be invisible boundary from the door on their own.

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