Tips Help a Little Santa Monica Dog with a Big Barking Problem

For this Santa Monica dog training session we worked with 3 year old Terrier Golden mix Stoney, stopping him from barking at people who pass by his home.

We started the session behind Stoney’s home due to the CoronaVirus. One of the things the guardian wanted to work on was the dog’s habit of getting into the trash. I show the guardian how to teach a dog the leave it exercise to help stop this problem.

Once Stoney knows the leave it command, the guardians can place the trash can or other items the dog likes to get into in front of them on the floor. When the dog shows interest, the humans can give the leave it command and then reward Stoney for leaving the item alone. With enough practice, Stoney will learn that leaving the trask=h or other items alone is somehting that gets him a reward. Great motivation.

While they are teaching the dog to stay out of the trash, they need to limit Stoney’s access to it when unsupervised. This will speed up the process of the dog developing a new behavior pattern.

The primary issue the humans wanted help with was the dog’s aggressive or territorial behavior towards people who pass by his home. The dog’s guarding behavior had gotten so intense the Post Office had stopped delivering mail to the home. To stop a dog from barking at people who pass by the home, you need to make sure the dog knows they are not a threat. I pulled out my camera so I could share an easy way to get a dog to stop barking at people passing by the house. You can learn this secret to stopping territorial behavior in dogs by watching the free positive dog training video below.

The great thing about this trick to stopping territorial behavior in dogs is that no punishment is involved. This is the power of positive dog training. By creating a situation where the dog is rewarded for something it used to protest, it isnt hard to get dogs to stop barking or guarding the home from strangers. Best of all, everyone can do this, even if they are not a professional dog trainer.

We covered a number of other things that will help in this in home Santa Monica dog training session. To help the guardians remember them all, we recorded a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.