Teaching a Pair of Dobermans to Stay Behind an Invisible Line When Guests Knock at the Door

For this Omaha dog training session we taught a pair of Dobermans (Zeke and Ray) to stay behind an invisible boundary 10 feet from the door when people visit.

We were called in after Zeke had nipped a few people. I was expecting to find a somewhat aggressive dog, but instead I think this was a situation of a dog that was cornered and didn’t have any other options. Throughout the session, Zeke was well mannered, polite and very responsive. What a smart dog.

I shared a number of dog behavior tips that should help the dogs start to identify as being in the following position. It’s going to be important that everyone in the house enforces rules consistently, increases the dogs exercise, pets with a purpose and rewards desired action through passive training.

Because the dogs were very excited at the door, I wanted to show the guardians how to train dogs to stay behind an invisible line 10 feet away from the door.

Teaching dogs to stay behind a boundary away from the door is pretty easy if you practice. Many people fail to introduce boundaries to dogs and then get frustrated with the dog doesn’t understand the concept of personal space. Fortunately you don’t have to be a professional Doberman trainer to do this and Zeke has some patient and understanding guardians.

If the guardians practice this door greeting ritual as described in the free dog training video above, they should find that the dog start moving away from the door on their own or if not, are easily redirected. This will result in people thinking these Dobermans have a great door manners.

The next step in this progression is to condition the dogs to move away from the door when they hear the doorbell ring. This link will take you to a video that will show you how to do that.

To help the guardians remember all the dog behavior secrets I shared with him in this in home dog training session, we shot a roadmap to success video that you can check out below