Teaching a Pair of Dogs to Leave a Room on Command

For this Omaha dog training session we helped 7 year-old Puggle Kia stop being underfoot and get along better with the new dog Danny, a 10 year-old Labrador mix who seems a bit stressed.

When I sat down with the dogs and their guardian, I noticed that Danny kept his space from Kia. Danny had a more laid back and accommodating energy where Kia was more up front and in your business.

I learned that since being adopted a few months ago, Kia had gone after the larger dog Danny when he tried to jump up on the furniture. Since the height at which a dog sits has a correlation to their social status or rank, its likely that Kia’s outbursts are an attempt to hold on to her “top dog” status.

To help Kia adopt more of a follower’s mindset, I suggested a number of rules and ways to enforce them. These rules were selected because they helps the dogs see the humans as being in a leadership position through their actions.

I also went over ways to add structure to their day to day lives. The guardian had been unintentionally rewarding many of Kia’s unwanted behaviors by petting or interacting at the wrong time or in confusing ways. By petting them with a purpose and rewarding desired actions via passive training, the guardian can help the dogs learn how they want them to behave and start repeating those behaviors.

One of the issues was Kia being underfoot at inopportune times. To help put a stop to that dog problem, I decided to show the guardian how to train a dog to leave a room on command.

Teaching a dog to leave a room is really easy, it just takes a bit of practice. If the guardians practice this technique a few times a day with each dog individually for a week or so, they should start exiting a room on command.

This will help the dog feel good about leaving the room when needed. And with two dogs in the house, establishing clear directional commands like this are invaluable.

I also went over a focus command to help the guardian redirect the dog’s attention before they can get into trouble in the future. This is also a simple exercise that only requires practice to become effective.

By the end of the session Kia had settled down and seemed to be responding to commands and corrections better and faster. I would have liked to see more improvement from Danny in the session, but his issues are linked to Kia’s. As she becomes more respectful to her guardian’s leadership, her attempts to correct and dominant Danny should subside.

To help the guardian remember all the things we covered in this in home dog training session, we shot a roadmap to success video.