Great Ways to Teach a Dog to Respect Personal Space

For this Omaha dog training session we worked with a pair of dogs (2 year-old Border Collie Victoria and 13 year-old Black Lab Ferris) who invade people’s personal space, jumping up on, pawing at or nudging any time they want attention.

As soon as I came inside, the dogs were immediately in my personal space; sniffing, bumping and jumping up on me.

It only took me a few minutes to see why the dogs acted this way. Each time the dog wanted attention, it just walked over to their guardian. If she didn’t start petting them right away, they would climb up on the chair next to her, paw or nudge her until she did.

I explained to their guardian that anything your dog is doing when you pet it is what you are rewarding and encouraging. And with two dogs in the house, each time one dog saw the other doing so, the second dog jumped in on the action.

To help the guardian put a stop to this I went over the series of escalating consequences I developed to disagree with dogs several years ago. You can learn how to stop dogs from invading people’s space by watching the video below.

I also shared two other tips that will help the dogs stop getting up in people’s business; petting with a purpose and passive training. Not only will these approaches help dogs learn to show respect for personal space, they will help their guardian stop reinforcing these unwanted behaviors.

I also went over the importance of structure and how dogs judge our leadership based on how they see us when we interact with them. Adding in some rules and enforcing them consistently will help flip the leader follower dynamic. This change in perception will need to become fully integrated in the dog’s minds in oder for them to stop pawing at people for attention.

To help the guardian remember all the dog behavior tips I shared with her during this in home dog training session, we shot a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.