Training Two Little Dogs to Stop Door Dashing

In this Omaha dog training session we worked with Winnie, a two-year-old Mini Goldendoodle, and Billie, an eleven-year-old Morkie, to help them stop barking when guests arrive and stop door dashing.

After I arrived I sat down with the dogs’ guardians to talk to them about their main dog behavior concerns. I learned that one of their guardians runs a daycare out of the home and the dogs bark when people arrive at the door to drop off their kids. Many dogs take it upon themselves to alert their guardians when someone is at the door and this can actually create anxiety for the dog. To help Winnie and Billie reduce their anxiety when guests arrive and get them to stop barking at the door I showed the guardian our Claiming the Door exercise, which you can watch below.

As you can see in the video above this exercise doesn’t always stop the dogs from barking when they hear someone at the door right away. The first step in accomplishing this is to teach the dogs that you are the one who is deciding who should come in the home or not and not them. This will help reduce their anxiety and take the pressure of the dog. Once this has been established and practiced, the dogs will start barking less and less when someone comes to the door.

To keep up with this good behavior the guardians will want to practice the Claiming the Door exercise as much as they can. They can ask friends and family members to participate to reduce the stress of having a real guest at the door while practicing. I want to remind the guardians to use the Escalating Consequences to disagree with the dogs and use our Petting with a Purpose technique to reward them for good behavior. We wrapped up this session with Winnie and Billie’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.