Training an Excitable Dog to Stop Barking at Guests

By: Sam Kanouse

Published Date: May 1, 2018

Schmidt - Training an Excitable Dog to Stop Barking at Guests

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with Schmidt a Beagle mix who needed help to stop people reactivity and stop barking at guests when they come over.

When working with a dog who is people reactive or barks at people we want to first help them to calm down and relax. The best way to do this is increase the distance between the dog and the person that they are reacting to. I then introduced the Behavior Adjustment Training or BAT method to Schmidt’s guardian to help Schmidt move closer to me without barking slowly over time. To see how we did this you can watch the video below.

As you can see in the video Schmidt was able to move closer and closer while working with his guardian on the touch and target exercise. He did have a couple of instances when he barked but I want to remind his guardian to not get discouraged and either move him farther away or keep progressing through the exercise depending on how energetic he is.

By the end of the session Schmidt was learning how to focus on the touch exercise and using the target to move closer and closer to me without barking. Later on he was able to approach me and get pets! This was a huge progress for him and I only expect that his guardians will be able to accomplish this more in the future. We wrapped up this dog behavior session with Schmidt’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.

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This post was written by: Sam Kanouse