Easy Lesson on How to Teach a Dog Personal Space

In this Omaha dog training session, we trained two dogs: Victoria, a 2-year-old Border Collie, and Ferris, a 13-year-old Black Lab. We wanted to educate them and their guardian on how to teach a dog personal space.

Both dogs like to get very close to people by jumping up, pawing, or nudging them for attention. When I walked in, the dogs were right in my face, sniffing, bumping, and jumping up on me.

How to Teach a Dog Personal Space and Respect Boundaries

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 shared two tips to help dogs stop bothering people: pet with a purpose and use passive training. These methods will teach dogs to respect personal space and help their guardians stop encouraging unwanted behaviors.

Passive Training and Petting with a Purpose

Passive training and petting with a purpose are some of the easiest dog training techniques. They both involve encouraging your dog for something they are already doing. By doing this your furry friend will learn what behaviors their guardians like.

Petting with a purpose is exactly what it sounds like. This is when you pet your dog to reward their behavior. If you ask your dog to “come” or “sit” you can pet them as a reward instead of giving them a treat or toy.

Passive training is very similar to petting with a purpose. This is when a dog is doing an undesired behavior, like jumping up on people, and the person freezes. Then once the dog stops doing the behavior, you’re free to pet and reward them.

If a dog calmly approaches you and sits down without being asked, you can pet them and use a cue word. This will help teach them to repeat this behavior. This will help you teach them to repeat this behavior. The most common ones would be “here” or “come.”

This is a simple way to train a dog by giving them attention when they do what you want. They will learn to repeat the behavior when you ask them to.

But be careful, any attention is rewarding for dogs. If you pet a puppy when it paws at you or gets too close, it will continue doing this as an adult. This is because it has learned that this behavior is rewarded. Be mindful of when you are petting your dog.

It is important to have a clear structure when interacting with dogs. Dogs judge our leadership based on how we behave around them. Adding in some rules and enforcing them consistently will help flip the leader follower dynamic. Dogs need to fully understand this new way of thinking in order to stop pawing at people for attention.

We made a video to help Ferris and Victoria’s guardian remember the dog training tips I shared during our session, including teaching a dog personal space. You can watch it below for a roadmap to success in training your dog at home.