Training a Little Puppy to Stop Door Dashing

In this Omaha puppy training session we worked with Jerome, a five-month-old Miniature Goldendoodle puppy who need help with his door dashing when guests arrive and to stop nipping his guardians.

After I arrived I sat down with Jerome’s guardians to learn about their main puppy behavior concern. They were concerned about Jerome nipping at them, especially when playing or when walking around the house. Dogs can see motion better than they can see things that are still, so things that are moving are especially exciting for puppies! To help Jerome stop nipping at his guardians I showed them how to trade his nipping at them for play biting at toys and other objects like bones that they want him to chew on. This way we can use positive dog training to help Jerome learn what he should be chewing on.

To help Jerome have better door manners I taught the guardians how to train Jerome to stay behind an invisible barrier. This will help Jerome give their guests plenty of space to comfortably walk into the home without being bombard by a puppy at the door. As an extra bonus, this technique will help Jerome develop self control. This will help him look to his guardians for direction and leadership. To see how I accomplished this, you can watch the video below.

As you can see in the video above, Jerome quickly developed great door behavior by staying respectfully far from the door when a guest enters the home. The guardians had mentioned that they wanted him to stop barking at the door when guests arrived, and this method will also help to accomplish quieter behavior.

By the end of the session Jerome was a relaxed, happy little puppy who was looking to his guardians for direction and leadership. To keep up this good behavior the guardians will want to use the Escalating Consequences to disagree with him, use our Petting with a Purpose technique to reward him for good behavior and use Passive Training by marking his behavior with a command word. We wrapped up this session with Jerome’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.