Tips to Help a Pair of Little Dogs with a Big Door Excitement Problem

For this Omaha dog training session we worked with a pair o ‘poo’s; 7 year-old Cockapoo Murphy (left) and 7 year-old Maltipoo Ollie – sharing tips to get the dogs to stay calm at the door and stop Murphy’s Resource Guarding problem.

The dogs were very excited with the guest at the door. Many dogs get over excited when people come to the door. This happens because the knock or ringing of the doorbell is followed by the person coming into the home. This makes the knock or door bell essentailly a command word to get excited.

I pulled out my phone so I could film an easy way to calm dogs down when someone is at the door. You can learn how to teach dogs to calm down when guests arrive by watching the free positive dog training video below.

Doesn’t matter if you have a big dog or little ones, this delayed entry exercise will help all dogs learn that being calm is the way to behave when people come to the door.

Once people enter, the dogs are likely to get excited again. When this happens, it will be important that no one pets the dogs when they are excited. Any behavior a dog is engaged in when you pet it is what you are specifically rewarding. So petting an excited dog results in a more excited dog. Instead, the person should freeze in place and wait for the dog to calm itself down. Once its calm reach to pet it, but stop the instant the dog shows excitement again. It takes time and practice, but the great thing is the dog learns calm behavior is what attracts attention instead of the excitement.

Another issue that the guardians wanted help with was Murphy’s resource guarding problem. You can learn how to stop resource guarding in dogs by watching the video below.

Just like the door excitment exercise, stopping Murphy’s resource guarding will take practice. So when he displays resource guarding behavior, the guardians should look at that as a good thing; an opportunity to help stop the unwanted behavior.

To help the dog’s family remember all the positive dog behavior tips we covered in this in home Omaha dog training session, we filmed a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.