How do you train your dog to respond to a knock on the door or a ringing doorbell?
This has been a difficult issue with Callie Golden Retriever. I think a knock at the door presents her with a doggie dilemma: Who’s there? Is it a friend or a foe? Callie is as people-social as any dog I’ve been around. So I’m sure she thinks one of her friends might be at the door.
On the other hand, she’s very protective, so she has to be concerned about strangers coming to the door.
My approach to this dog training challenge has been to train Callie to “sit” when someone comes to the door. Sometimes the excitement of the moment overtakes her training, but she’s doing pretty well.
I am often impressed, though, at how clever professional dog trainers can be at solving these kinds of dog behavior problems. In this article, Lisa Moore talks about an interesting approach. She trains her dogs to go to a special place when she commands them to. And she is constantly knocking on the door to “desensitize” her dogs to the sound.
Seems like a good way to train your dog so it doesn’t cause problems when someone comes to the door.
