How to Help a Chihuahua Who Doesn’t Like Strangers Visiting

For this Omaha dog training session we shared tips on how to help a Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting.

Zuri’s mom had already worked with one of our behavior experts so I spent a few minutes brushing up on the dog training fundamentals that they covered in that session.

It’s important that your dog has an established marker word for most positive dog training exercises. This helps the dog understand that it has done the thing that you want which will speed up your training or behavior modification efforts.

I spent a good portion of the session discussing dog body language, affirmation signals, cutoff signals and signs of consent.

Reading dog body language is important anytime you have a Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting. In fact it doesn’t matter what the breed is, you need to be able to recognize when your dog starts to feel uncomfortable if you want to change their emotional response.

Chihuahua Who Doesn’t Like Strangers Visiting

After wrapping up the dog body language conversation, we were ready to address Zuri’s mom’s primary concern; fixing her Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting her home.

In my experience as a dog behavior expert, many dogs act out when they are scared of things. I think it’s safe to say that Zuri is a fearful Chihuahua when it comes to meeting new people.

I had the guardian go and grab a spoonful of yogurt. Often I like to use peanut butter but Zuri isn’t a fan.

When dogs are licking something, it releases oxytocin and serotonin into their brain. These feel-good hormones help dogs change how they feel about things.

Additionally, having a dog lick something is what we call an incompatible behavior. Zuri cannot bark, nip or bite a visitor if she is licking a spoonful of yogurt.

I recommended the guardian get spoons of yogurt and leave them in the freezer so that it lasts longer when she practices this exercise to stop the nipping and biting from her Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting or coming into her home.

If you have a small breed dog like a Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting your home, you should definitely check out the free positive dog training video that we shot.

This is the first time that I have done this exercise this way. I love improvising and modifying dog behavior modification techniques in the moment.

Although Zuri’s reaction wasn’t huge, she was communicating that she felt uncomfortable when I was walking behind her.

Switching things up so that her mom was following me may seem like a small twist but sometimes these are the most important things to do when you’re trying to change your dogs’ emotional response.

Now this is not gonna be a quick fix. Anytime you have a dog with a behavior that they have practiced for a long time, it’s going to take time and positive practice to develop a new habit.

But as you saw on the video, this can be a very effective way of helping a Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting her home.

When we finished filming the video, Zuri’s mom said that while she appreciated the exercise, she didn’t think it was reasonable to do this with all of her friends who come to visit.

While this is true, when it comes to modifying dog behavior, I cheat as much as possible. Instead of asking friends who come to visit, I recommended that she pick friends to come over to specifically practice this exercise to help her Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting or stopping by.

It doesn’t have to be the sole reason for the visit. Her friends could come over, practice this exercise and then leave right away to go grab some drinks, dinner or go see a movie.

She can also invite friends to come over just to help her practice and then leave if they live nearby.

The idea is to create as many repetitions of visitors entering with Zuri not reacting and stack them one on top of the other.

Another tip to help this Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting is to take Zuri outside to meet the visitors before they enter the home.

As mentioned in the video, when we enter a dog’s home, the dog has no choice in the matter. But if we go outside, the dog has an opportunity to walk up to the person or walk away.

It may seem like a small thing, but giving a dog the ability to make the decision empowers them and gives them confidence.

The additional benefits of the open space and distractions of the great outdoors can also help the dog avoid focusing exclusively on the visitor.

The guardian can also use this outdoor greeting to set up coming inside the home and going over the exercise we filmed to fix her Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting or coming into her home.

It’s also important to recognize that not every person is going to be responded to the same way. People with bigger energies or certain characteristics may set Zuri off where others do not.

I recommended that the guardian keeps a journal of all of the people that Zuri has a problem with entering the home. This way she can start looking for common characteristics such as height, sex, movement, beards, etc.

If the guardian can identify that Zuri has a problem with males who are over 6 feet tall, then she can recruit some friends who meet that characteristic and have them come by to practice the technique that we shot in the video.

Again you want to stack a positive experience on top of another one. Understanding what the triggers are gives the guardian more insight to help her dog.

We wrapped up the session by practicing something that I call the engage disengage game.  I had just practiced this exercise with a client in Culver City and told her I would link that session right up here so that she could watch the video on how to use that exercise.

Hopefully by giving the guardian multiple ways to help set Zuri up for success, she can create those positive encounters and experiences and stack them one on top of the other.

I would love to say that Zuri will be able to completely get over her stranger danger, but each dog and its situation is unique. It depends on the intensity of the dog’s fear, the quality of the practice as well as the frequency.

But with multiple ways of addressing the behavior problem of this  Chihuahua who doesn’t like strangers visiting, she can pick the appropriate exercise and practice building those positive responses.

I invited the guardian to text or call me if she has questions or setbacks. Dog training and behavior modification is not a linear process. There are going to be good days and bad days, that’s all part of the game.

The key is to watch the dog’s body language, stop and back up anytime a dog starts to feel uncomfortable while stacking a successful encounter upon another one.

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