Some Tips to Stop a Dog From Interrupting When His Guardian’s Kiss

For this Omaha dog training session we worked with 4 year-old Australian Shepherd Griff and his roomie Stewey, a 10 year-old Schnoodle; teaching Griff he doesn’t need to interrupt or stop one of his owner’s from ticking or kissing his girlfriend.

Some people think that when a dog disagrees with people who kiss, that it’s jealous. Although it’s possible for a dog to become jealous seeing people kiss or embrace, in this case I think Griff thought his guardian was in duress and needed help.

How to Stop a Dog From Barking When People Kiss, Hug or Embrace

As Omaha’s resident dog behaviorist, I have had great success in stopping dogs from disagreeing when people kiss by using counterconditioning. This is a process that involves re-creating the action the dog disagrees with, but doing it in a very minimal way so that the dog’s reaction is slight if it reacts at all. Then the action is followed by the dog being rewarded. Essentially the dog learns that the activity is actually a precursor to them getting a treat or affection so instead of disagreement, they are very comfortable with the activity.

If you have a dog that doesn’t like it when people wrestle, tickle each other or embrace, you can use this easy exercise to stop a dog from trying to control or stop humans from interacting. All it takes is good timing, a controlled environment and some high-value treats that the dog really likes. You don’t have to have any formal training or be a professional Australian Shepherd dog trainer to do it.

Check out the free positive dog training video below for tips on how to stop a dog from protesting when people hug or kiss.

This was not the ideal situation because we had already been working with the dogs for a couple of hours and there were other people in the room. In fact we had to stop the first attempt at shooting the video because one of the guardians inadvertently distracted Griff’s attention away from the other guardian and his girlfriend. You rally want to find a time and place free from distractions so the dog can focus on the exercise without distractions.

It will be important for the guardians to practice this secret to stop a dog from getting upset when people kiss a couple of times a day every day for a week or two. This is not the first time that I have had to request that people kiss in order to help their dog get over a behavior problem, but it always makes me smile.

The important thing is the dog sees this activity happening in progressively more and more intense or real life scenarios frequently. The best way to do that is a couple of times a day, every day for a week or two so that you get the strongest result.

Of course there were a number of other dog behavior tips that I shared in this in-home Omaha dog training session. To help the guardians remember them all, we recorded a short roadmap to success video that you can watch below