USA Dog Behavior Podcast
Are you struggling with a dog that is anxious, fearful, or aggressive? You’re at the right place. In this audio podcast series, Scott Sheaffer will explore insights and strategies to guide dog owners, veterinary practices, and dog trainers in overcoming these issues using scientific and humane methods.
USA Dog Behavior Podcast
Managing Your Dog's Territorial Aggression at the Front Door
Navigating the choppy waters of canine territorial aggression just got smoother. Our latest discussion zeroes in on the strategies needed to manage dogs with a keen sense of trepidation when it comes to visitors coming into their home.
You'll discover how to categorize these guests into three distinct camps, and we'll pay special attention to those 'level two' visitors who, with the right approach, could move from unfamiliar to trusted allies in your dog's eyes.
We'll also cover everything from leveraging a safe space and the benefits of a pre-entry stroll to the favorable non-interactive stance a visitor should maintain upon entering your domain.
View this Episode on YouTube:
Ep. 36: Managing Your Dog's Territorial Aggression at the Front Door, Part 2
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About Scott Sheaffer
Scott Sheaffer, CCBC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA, is a certified dog behavior consultant who has worked with thousands of dog owners and their aggressive dogs. Scott specializes in the assessment and treatment of fear, anxiety, aggression, and phobias in dogs six months and older. For more information about Scott, see USADogBehavior.com.
Disclaimer
If your dog is aggressive toward humans, consult an experienced, certified canine behavior consultant immediately and ensure your dog cannot harm anyone. This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace professional guidance. Scott Sheaffer and USA Dog Behavior, LLC, are not liable for outcomes resulting from the advice provided.
In our last episode we went over what territorial aggression is, and we also covered things to consider before bringing someone in your home who might make your dog grumpy and of course by that I mean they don't like the person coming into your home or should I say their home right? In today's episode, we'll cover how I want you to manage your dog and, very importantly, the visitor once they are in your home, for dogs that have territorial aggression. If you haven't already listened to the last episode, episode 35, it would be very beneficial to do so before listening to this episode. This is part two of a two-part series. Are you struggling with a dog that is anxious or aggressive? You're at the right place because in this podcast series, we educate dog owners, veterinary practices and dog trainers on how to overcome dog fear and aggression using humane methods. My name is Scott Sheaffer and it's my mission to help you better understand your dog's behavior. You can watch the video version of this episode on YouTube. By the way, I provided a link in the episode notes. It'll take you directly to the video at the Grumpy Dog's channel. You can also search for the Grumpy Dog's channel on YouTube.
Scott Sheaffer:Territorial aggression, as we talked about in the last episode is primarily driven by your dog's fear of someone coming into their safe place and by safe place, of course, I'm talking about your home Someone who they are not comfortable with, they don't care for. That makes them nervous, they look scary, etc. Some dogs can get more than grumpy with these people. They can even morph into aggression. Of course, by that I'm talking about barking, growling, even biting. Before we go on if you have a dog, just a note here if you have a dog who you think might present any possibility of biting a visitor in one of these scenarios coming into your home, or if their aggression is anything beyond mild, please seek the help of an experienced canine behavior consultant. All right, let's move on.
Scott Sheaffer:There are three types of visitors to your home, and this is a really important thing. If we categorize these visitors into different categories, it'll tell you how you handle each category of visitor and it's really quite simple. There are three levels Levels one through three. How you classify each visitor will affect how you handle that specific visitor. First, let's define what a level one visitor is. There are typically only three to five of these level one type visitors coming into your home, and these would be family members, neighbors, other loved ones. Three to five is almost always the number, and again, that includes your family members too. What is a level one? A level one is someone that your dog is completely comfortable with. In other words, you could even be out of your home and let someone give someone keys to your home and they would come in. Your dog would be just fine with them. That would be a level one. There's zero concern, they're happy to see the visitor, no problems at all. And again, I've done a lot of sampling on this, and it's almost always three to five, and I tell you that so you don't feel bad, because that's pretty typical when a dog is presenting with territorial aggression that we talked about in episode 35.
Scott Sheaffer:Next, let's define what a level three visitor is. Yes, I know I skipped two, but I want to come back to that in just a second. Let's talk about level three now. A level three would be typically and the example I like to use is a plumber A one-time visitor to your home, a delivery person who's coming in delivering something into your living room, something like that would be a one-time visitor. You have no relationship, you don't anticipate ever seeing that person again, and that's a level three. And what do you do with them? It's real simple. You just put them in their safe place that we talked about in the last episode. So level ones you don't need to do a thing, they're fine. You don't need to do anything. Level threes just put your dog in their safe place once the visitor rings the doorbell, before you even let the visitor in, just put them in their safe place.
Scott Sheaffer:All right, let's talk about a level two visitor, and this is the one that's the most important, because this is where we're going to do some, take some opportunities here to do some behavior modification. This is the most important kind of visitor and we're going to focus on that visitor for the rest of this podcast. This visitor is typically numbering in the five to 10 people. In other words, there's five to 10 people in your life that fit in the level two category. And what is a level two? A level two would be someone family member, neighbor, close friend, someone that the dog is not currently comfortable with but that you would like for the dog to be comfortable with. Someone that comes over from time and time again and again. It's typically about five to ten people and we're trying to show them that this unfamiliar person, this particular person, is not scary and they don't have to do these behaviors. And we're doing this by treating the real problem, which, of course, as we say over and over, is their fear of this person. The goal is to not only get your dog bitter with these people, these, let's say, five to ten people, these level twos some of the dogs not good with but you'd like them to be good with but, almost more importantly, we're trying to get them to generalize their feelings about visitors to everyone. In other words, they have good experiences with these five to ten people. It is our hope that it will lessen their fear of everyone coming into the home. It's called generalization of generalizing the learning. Before we move on to talk about level two visitors, just want to make a note here. If you'd like to learn more about scheduling an in-person session with me, either in person or online, please visit grumpydogspodcastcom to contact us directly and learn more.
Scott Sheaffer:All right, let's pick back up with the level two visitors. Again, let's set up the scenario for a level two visitor Ding dong, the doorbell rings or they knock on the door and your dog goes ballistic. They start barking, they may growl, they may jump up on the door who knows but it's not a happy behavior and, of course, you're not helping anything because you're doing what everyone else does You're yelling at the dog and you're getting frustrated. Everybody's moving very fast and, of course, you know where this is going. That is an escalation of this behavior. Does You're yelling at the dog and you're getting frustrated? Everybody's moving very fast and, of course, you know where this is going. That is an escalation of this behavior. What I'm telling you to do is to calm down. We're going to talk about that in just a second. I know it's hard to do. It's very frustrating to have a dog like this.
Scott Sheaffer:Here's what I want you to do on the level two visitor comes to your door. First, be calm. When you go to the door, your dog absolutely picks up this intensity and this arousal and it only makes things worse, as you can imagine. So try to be as calm as possible. Go into a zen moment. People really get revved up more than you think you do, and it's really contributing to your dog's excitability here. Next thing I want you to do is you're going to be calm going to the door. You're going to walk to the door and I want you to talk through the door. This is going to be for a level two Because, remember, level one we just let them in.
Scott Sheaffer:At level three, we just put your dog up. You're going to talk through the door and you're going to ask the visitor to let you put your dog up. So here it is Ding dong, knock, knock, dog's going crazy. You're trying to be calm and you'll want you to be calm. You calmly go to the door. Hi, can you give me a second to put my dog up? And I'm telling you that that's so easy to do because 100% of people are happy for you to do that. Why? Because that means you either have an aggressive dog, or you have, and or you have an unruly dog, meaning jumping up all over you and making a mess of things, and so most people are very happy to have you put that dog away and they don't have to deal with it when they come in. So that buys you 30 to 60 seconds to calmly take your dog back to their safe place. See that word that keeps coming up Calmly. That's exactly right. Just put one finger through their collar if you need to. Just gently take them back to the room Everybody's real calm and put them in their safe place.
Scott Sheaffer:Then you're going to return to the door without your dog and you're going to ask the person to do this. Can I get you to stand a few feet? You know, maybe 10, 15 feet? Might even want to have a kind of a place, a demarcated place, where you can say, stand by that tree. Can I get you just to stand by that tree for a second? I'm going to go put a leash on my dog and I want to introduce him to you out front before you come in, Because, as you or as you may not know, my dog's a little scared of visitors and I want him to be better with you, and that's always a big thing to say. I want him to be better with you. So get a little buy-in on the part of the visitor. You're going to return to the door with your dog on a leash and the three of you the two humans and the dog are going to take a little two-minute walk together and all you're going to do is walk down about I like to say, a house or two and come back.
Scott Sheaffer:And why a walk outside? Because we're taking the territorial component out. We're taking the territorial component out. If you introduce the person to your dog outside, they're not in their territory and so the anxiety level goes dramatically down and it works really quite well. We want to keep your dog during this little walk. We want to keep your dog a safe distance from the visitor Maybe a little distance to keep your dog calm if necessary. And you're going to keep talking and chatting with the visitor during the walk and you want to do that because you want to signal to your dog that everything is normal, all right.
Scott Sheaffer:So person comes for the level two. Person comes to your door. You say give me a second to put my dog up. You put him in a safe place. You return, you talk to the person saying my dog is afraid of people a little bit. Visitor's liking to be better with you. Okay, can I get you to wait outside, just a few feet from the front door, and we're just going to take a little walk together. And you're going to take that walk and the person you two are going to keep chatting. Everybody's super relaxed, it's not an event. And then you're going to come back to the door and we're going to talk about that in just a second During the walk. The visitor, however, is, while talking to you, is not to look, touch or talk or approach the dog the whole time, and that's so that they don't look so scary. If they're giving your dog a lot of attention, that may make your dog a little bit more scary. You keep talking, but I don't want the visitor interacting with the dog at all. This was discussed in the last episode.
Scott Sheaffer:When you get back to your home from this very short, one two-minute walk. So when you get back to your home from this very short, one two minute walk, have the visitor I love this part Walk in first and make themselves at home, go to the refrigerator, get a bottle of water, sit at the kitchen counter, sit on the sofa, sit in the bar, on a bar stool, whatever, instead of the visitor entering after you. So the visitor goes in first, makes themselves comfortable, and then you walk in with the dog. We're reversing things a little bit here Instead of you going in first, think about it and the visitor entering the home while your dog is there. That's a lot of pressure. We're going to flip it and the person is going to just casually walk in, make themselves at home, and then you'll enter with the dog. So the dog doesn't experience that oh no, someone's coming into my space Really really can help and it's a little bit counterintuitive, I know. When you bring your dog into your home, you just stay relaxed and drop the leash so that just let the dog drag the leash around so that you can easily regain control of the dog if necessary. In other words, just grab the leash and take them to their safe place if they start getting a little grumpy.
Scott Sheaffer:The visitor, once in your home, of course, continues to not look, touch, talk or approach your dog for the entire visit, and the last thing I want to happen is have the visitor throw high-value treats to your dog throughout their visit once they are in the home. And I want you to pick treats to your dog throughout their visit once they are in the home, and I want you to pick treats that your dog absolutely loves. Little pieces of hot dogs and boiled chicken are always popular, and these are treats that you don't normally give to your dog except when you have visitors over. I think you see what we're doing there and the person is relaxed, throwing these treats. So now we're making it a rewarding experience now to your dog. A little bit of counter-conditioning. What have we done here? Quick, quick review for level two your dog meets the person outside, so we get rid of that territorial issue.
Scott Sheaffer:Your visitor is not doing anything to look scary not looking, touching, talking or approaching. We talk a lot about that in the last episode. Not looking, touching, talking or approaching we talk a lot about that in the last episode. When, returning to your home, your dog notices the person is already in the home when they enter. Your dog is not having experienced the feeling of someone coming into their space. Finally, we've switched the script on this and we've made it not so scary or really not even scary at all, hopefully and made it rewarding for your dog to have a visitor. Again, the goal is not just to make your dog better with this person, but to generalize the learning to everybody over time. This isn't something you're going to do in a day or two or even a week or two. This could take a few months and lots of these experiences, but it really does work and you can see some immediate benefits pretty quickly. It's what a lot of the feedback I get.
Scott Sheaffer:There are two frequently asked questions I get when discussing territorial aggression. One is how many times will I have to do this in order for my dog to be okay with a person, an individual person? Well, you're not going to like this answer, but you know what it is. Your dog will tell you with their body language. You may have to do this many times with the same person and don't assume that your dog is okay too quickly. I'd rather you be super conservative on that until your dog is just unbelievably happy to see this person jumps up on their lap. You get the idea it really is indicating with their body language. They're completely relaxed, soft body, mouth, open, almond eyes, tail is down, not up. Tail is down and relaxed. The next question I get is what if I have more than one person at the door at a time? Well, my rule is you can have a couple people, come over, two people and you can do this simultaneously with two people. More than that, just treat them as a level three. Just put your dog in his safe place and certainly if you have a party, put him in his safe place.
Scott Sheaffer:One of the big mistakes people make in territorial aggression is they'll let their dog out. I don't know why people do this, but they let their dog out in a group of 20 people and they say, oh, he did so marvelous. Yeah, well, if you look what the dog is doing, he's cowering and hiding everywhere. He's overwhelmed, so he's not happy. And we do see some bites sometimes when someone thinks everything is fine and reaches to your dog and they bite out of pure panic. So please don't do that in this situation out of pure panic. So please don't do that in this situation.
Scott Sheaffer:This technique is really simple and effective to help your dog learn that strangers at the door to them may not be so scary and they don't have to be aggressive. Learn is the important word here. We don't teach them anything. We don't really ever teach dogs anything. If you think about it, they learn something and that's the most important thing. Just like with humans, your assignment is to try this with someone.
Scott Sheaffer:I recommend a good friend or close family member first. Remember, just because a person might be close to you doesn't mean your dog is okay with them. Your dog gets all the votes on that. If this goes well with that one person, you can expand it to other people. Also remember that if your dog is more than mildly aggressive or if there is any concern about your dog biting someone. Please seek the help of a professional. Thanks for listening. Please contact me directly with your comments and questions at GrumpyDogsPodcastcom, where you'll also find my social media links. Thank you for joining me today. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with other dog lovers. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll continue our dive into the world of dog behavior.
