Your Dog Barks When There’s Someone At The Door
As far as your dog knows, that knocking on the door or ringing of the bell means danger!
Someone who isn’t in their family pack has arrived but what do they want?? They are a potential risk to the household and so must be told to back off and beware ‘cos they are here to protect everyone.
Some dogs will bark every time someone walks past the house, or a car pulls onto the drive – our poor food delivery guy gets a right earful of barking when he delivers us food!!!
This is can be called ‘alarm barking‘ because they are trying to raise an alarm that there is possible danger outside.
Some dogs are worse than others, either because of their breed or their personality or even their past experiences.
They can be more of a barker when there is a new baby, an older person or even an ill person at home too.
Any dog that is known as ‘good for guarding’ can be more of an alarm barker.
Think German Shepherds and Rottweilers.
It’s actually a good thing that your dog is so aware of the outside world and wants to keep you all safe – but it doesn’t always seem like a good thing.
Sometimes it just becomes too much for you, the family and even the neighbours.
If you want to try and reduce or stop your dog barking at the door, then read on to find out how to stop them barking every time the door knocks!
Just Remember
Please remember that any training takes time. Time for you to learn and time for your dog to learn.
Experts say that it takes an average human (who’s average??) at least seven times of repetition to even start to remember something as a new habit.
So how many times will it take your dog to remember a new skill or habit??
Try to give it time, expect to mess up, have some patience and try and make it fun!!
Use training time as a fun time to bond with your dog, it shouldn’t be stressful or bring you to tears! If it does, stop whatever you are doing and leave the training for another day – or try another method.
What To Do If Your Dog Barks At The Door
So, we know that when dogs bark at the door, they are ‘alarm barking’ to warn us of potential danger, but what do we do to stop the excessive, annoying barking?
Like with all dog training, there are do’s and don’ts, below are some suggestions of what you can do.
Distract them.
If they start barking because the door knocks, try distracting them with something else. Sounds simple and sometimes it is! Try giving them a toy, or play fetch, you could even send them to bed.
By sending them to bed you are removing them from the trigger area of the door, their bed is also a safe place for them, and it may calm them down.
Fetching or playing with a toy will distract them from the door by giving them something more exciting to do. Have you ever seen that cartoon dog get distracted by a squirrel and go running off? It’s kind of like that.
You could even try a few tricks – if they have learnt any – like sit, rollover etc. It just disconnects their brain from being on alert and relaxing into something else instead.
At any point of your training, if your dog does well by not barking, make sure you reward them in some way!
Whether it be praise, hugs, food treats or a special toy, make sure they know they have done well!
Then put all of the treats away until they can listen to the knocking without reacting with barking.
Knockknockknockknockknockknockknock
You can also try desensitising them to the noise.
Dog trainers use counter conditioning or desensitising methods to train dogs not to do something. It undoes any ‘training’ already done and any bad habits that may have formed by accident.
To try desensitising your dog at home, record or download a sound that sets them off barking – so a knocking, doorbell ringing etc.
(If you can’t download or record a sound, try getting someone to gently tap the door to begin with.)
Then make sure the house is fairly quiet and you aren’t expecting anyone to visit – otherwise, they will be distracting the dog and making the noise you are trying to teach your dog to ignore!
Next, just start to play the sound quietly in the same room as your dog. And I mean start quietly – so you can hardly hear it. (Your dog still will.)
If they bark, just ignore them. If they keep barking try the distraction techniques.
If they are quiet and ignore the knocking, reward them with a treat, a hug or their favourite toy. Give them loads of fuss and then go back to being quiet and watching the tv or reading – keeping the knocking (or other trigger sound) playing in the background.
Once they have got used to the knocking at a certain level and are ignoring it, turn the volume up a notch or two. Then repeat the above, ignore the barking or try distraction.
(If you are using someone to knock on the door rather than a recording, get them to start knocking a little louder.)
Keep doing this simple training and eventually get up to the same volume level as your actual door knock/doorbell.
If your dog can have the recorded sound of a door knocking without barking, you’re ready for the real thing!
Get someone to go outside and knock on the door at a normal level, and see the dog’s reaction.
If they don’t bark, give them lots of praise and a treat – whichever reward works better for them.
Remember to always fuss your dog and let them know they have done well and pleased you – a dog only ever wants three things: food, sleep and it’s owners love.
Don’t Do This:
Don’t bother shouting at them – even though this might be our instinctual reaction when dogs start barking their brains out.
To your dog, they are barking to alert you to danger, to keep you safe. If YOU start shouting too, your dog just thinks you are joining in the alarm call and will carry on doing it. The more annoyed you get or louder you shout, the more worked up they will get.
In their head, you are the pack leader and if the pack leader has started to alarm bark, then it must mean real danger is coming!
This will just make them bark more, louder and get anxious, may be even more protective.
So, as tempted as you are to just bellow out SHUT UUUUUPPPPPP, don’t.
Trust me, we’ve tried it a couple of times. (In our very early days of dog ownership.) My in-laws have tried it.
Shouting at your dog won’t work and it’s just a little bit mean too.
My dad has always had (mostly big) dogs, and he has always ignored any barking they’ve done – and had better results than anyone I’ve seen who screams at their dog. So that’s the path we follow.
We try to be calm, consistent, patient (as we can be) and fun!