How to Stop Small Dog Aggression at the Front Door

Posted on Oct 29 in Small Dog Aggressionby Jeff K.Print

Door guard

Halloween is almost here, and you may be worried about how your dog is going to handle all those trick-or-treaters coming to your front door. Here’s how to take charge of the situation well before trouble begins.
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This article quotes Dale Stavroff, in his book Let the Dog Decide. Some of the quoted material has been edited for length.

These steps assume you have already taught your dog to lie down on command.

“Schedule a visit by a friend. Arrange with the friend that he or she will knock or right the bell only once, and then be prepared to wait until you open the door.

“At the appointed time, have the dog at your side with the long line attached to the flat collar, and await your friends ring or knock at a distance away from the door that is greater than the length of the line.

“If the dog charges the door at the sound of the doorbell or knock, stand on the line with your back turned to the dog. Keep your back turned for a moment after the dog comes to the end of the line knocks itself down with the force of its own momentum, to allow the dog time to get back on its feet and see that you and your hands are not responsible for what happened.

“Turn around, call the dog to you, and reassure it with benevolent eye contact, a treat, and a pet.

“If the dog does not charge the door . . . it will almost certainly still be feeling some agitation and concern, so reassure it with benevolent eye contact, a treat, and a pet.” [My note: This approach is very different from Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer's technique of stabbing the dog in the neck with your fingers and saying “Shh!”]

“Walk to the door with the dog and put it in a down [position.]

“Open the door and welcome the visitor into the house while the dog remains in the down. This gives the dog and opportunity to see and sniff the visitor from a little distance and to observe that the two of your are interacting comfortably.”

At this point, you should be watching for your dog to relax in the down position. Once the dog relaxes completely, you can release the dog to investigate your friend more freely. Your friend can give the dog a treat at this point, which should confirm in the dog’s mind that approaching the visitor in a relaxed state is the right thing to do.

You should repeat these steps over the next several days with different visitors, particularly those you dog has never met before. This will help your small dog generalize his behavior in as wide a range of circumstances as possible.

Take Action:

1. Do the steps listed above.
2. Repeat the training as often as possible over the next two weeks and you should have a calm, well-behave dog when visitors come calling.

Let us know what you think.

Use the Reply section below this article to tell the rest of the community about your trials and successes with training your small dog not to charge the front door.

Photo courtesy of tobyotter@flickr.com

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2 Comments

• Thanks Jeff. This is my biggest problem with Isha, my 5lb Yorkie. I'm going to try this if I can round up enough visitors over the next two weeks. I'll let you know how it goes. says:

  November 12, 2009 at 7:59 pm

  na
• Jeff K. says:

  November 14, 2009 at 4:47 pm

  Great Cindy. Let me know how it works out.

  Jeff

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