Tips to Stop a Dog From Acting Protectively Aggressive to House Guests

For this Omaha dog training session we shared tips to help 6 year-old Boxer mix Koda stop acting protectively aggressive when people visit his home.

I studied Koda pretty closely through the glass door to the home when I arrived for the session. He showed a very light bit of aggressive dog behavior, but seemed more excited. I used a few dog behaviorist tips to help him settle down before I came inside.

One of the things I did was offer him a bully stick. Dogs chew when anxious of stressed so giving the dog a nice chew items during those times in a great way to redirect them, build a positive association and provide a healthy outlet to let loose some anxiety and stress,

Before I shared tips to help him stop acting aggressively to guests, I discussed Koda’s day to day routine and how adding exercise, rules and structure can all help a dog develop a healthy leader follower dynamic.

One thing Id really like to see the guardians do is have his cracked tooth extracted. His aggressive behavior towards houseguests started shortly after the passing of another dog and his tooth getting cracked. Any chronic injury can have a profound effect on a dog’s behavior and psychology. While its not likely the cause of Kola’s protective aggression, it most certainly is a contributor and probably an amplifier.

I recreated the technique I used to help Koda not act aggressive to me so that the guardians can enlist the help of some friends to help him practice. You can learn how to help a dog stop acting protectively aggressive to visitors in the free dog training video below.

Its going to be important for the guardians to practice this guest arrival approach a few times a week for a month or so, perhaps longer. The more positive associations Koda has with a variety of unknown house guests, the more likely it is he will see strangers as a friend and not a threat.

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